Normative Data Study of Verbal Fluency and Naming Tests in Elderly People in Costa Rica.

Objective: To generate normative data for the Verbal Fluency Test (VFT) and the Boston Naming Test (BNT) in the Costa Rican population.

Method: The sample consisted of 563 healthy older people (aged 59-90 years). Polynomial multiple regression analyses were run to evaluate the effects of the age, sex, and education variables on VFT and BNT scores.

Neuropsychological Test Performance in Cognitively Normal Spanish-speaking Nonagenarians with Little Education.

To find associations of age, sex, and education with neuropsychological test performance in cognitively normal Spanish-speaking Costa Rican nonagenarians with little education; to provide norms; and to compare their performance with similar Puerto Ricans. For 95 Costa Ricans (90-102 years old, 0-6 years of education), multiple regression assessed associations with demographics of performance on six neuropsychological tests. Analyses of covariance compared them with 23 Puerto Ricans (90-99 years old).

Heritability of cognitive functions in families of successful cognitive aging probands from the Central Valley of Costa Rica.

We sought to identify cognitive phenotypes for family/genetic studies of successful cognitive aging (SCA; maintaining intact cognitive functioning while living to late old age). We administered a battery of neuropsychological tests to nondemented nonagenarians (n = 65; mean age = 93.4 ± 3.