Background: Several studies demonstrate that healthy elderly people present impairments in different executive functions (for example, inhibition, updating and alternation). However, these works use tasks that measure reaction time as a dependent variable, and it is already known that processing speed decreases with age. Objective: As a consequence of that, this study aimed to test a battery of representative executive tests. This freely accessible battery includes 2 tests for each executive domain (inhibition, updating and alternation), controls the effects of processing speed, as the participants themselves regulate the time of stimulus presentation (paradigm - self-paced) and all responses were given verbally (thus controlling the effect of psychomotor speed). Methods: For this pilot study, 13 healthy elderly females (M=68.23, SD=6.13) were evaluated, each one performed a total of 6 executive tests. For the inferential statistical analysis, the t test of repeated measures with a bootstrap of 5000 resamplings was used. Results: As a result, we observed that in the executive blocks, participants obtained fewer correct answers per unit of time than in the control blocks, demonstrating that the executive block is in fact evaluating an executive function regardless of the processing speed. Conclusion: As a pilot study, this battery proved to be effective and easy to apply in elderly population.
Genomic instability in a healthy elderly population: a pilot study of possible cytogenetic markers related to ageing
