Age and Educational Differences on the Trail Making Test and Wechsler Memory Scales
The purposes of this study were (a) to replicate the previously reported influence of age and education on neuropsychological test performance with a much larger sample of adults and (b) to add to the provisional norms for adult medical-surgical patients without evidence of neurological disease. While hospitalized awaiting cardiac surgery, 322 male and female adults between the ages of 40 and 69 yr. were given the Trail Making Test (Parts A and B) from the Halstead-Reitan Battery, the Visual Reproduction subtest from the Wechsler Memory Scale Form II, and the Logical Memory Scale from the Wechsler Memory Scale Form I. Both age and level of education were strongly associated with performance on the Trail Making Test. On the two subtests of the Wechsler Memory Scale, education alone was associated with test performance. These findings point to the potential danger of falsely classifying adults of older ages or with lower education as possibly having an organic brain syndrome. Regression equations are presented which quantify the amount of adjustment of scores appropriate for similar populations.