Practice effect and test-retest reliability of attentional and executive tests in middle-aged to elderly subjects.

There is a lack of data about the practice effect and test-retest reliability (TRR) on many attentional and executive tests in neuropsychology. In this study, 37 subjects aged 52 to 80 were tested three times with an inter-assessment interval of 14 days. The battery included the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test, the Stroop interference test, the Letter-Number Sequencing test, Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-III (WAIS-III), the Ruff 2 and 7 Selective Attention Test, the Tower of London, the Verbal Fluency test, and simple, choice, and sequential reaction time tests.

Lack of efficacy of a nicotine transdermal treatment on motor and cognitive deficits in Parkinson's disease.

Unlabelled: Studies assessing the efficacy of nicotine in Parkinson's disease (PD) have generated contradictory results. The controversy seems to stem from uncontrolled factors including the lack of objective measures, the practice effect in a test-retest design, and the absence of plasmatic dosage. This study aimed at further controlling these factors using transdermal nicotine in PD.

Poor tolerability of a transdermal nicotine treatment in Parkinson's disease.

Studies assessing the effect of transdermal nicotine in Parkinson's disease (PD) have generated mixed results regarding its efficacy to treat motor and cognitive deficits. These studies generally reported good tolerability in nonsmoking PD patients. The authors report the tolerability data of an open trial with transdermal nicotine in PD.