The long-term objective is to produce a self-administered, state of the art, and less costly cognitive screening device sensitive to subtle mental deterioration because of aging or other factors. Interest in such a test has been expressed by hospitals, HMO's. and universities who employ older individuals and by medical and other professionals. Present neuropsychological measures are lengthy, expensive, and have norms based on small numbers. We have developed a computer give battery, provisionally called the Assessment of Cognitive Skills (ACS). lt was given to 1,003 physicians, largely male, ages 28 - 92. Statistical analyses indicate the ACS is working as hoped: Younger subjects outperform older ones in a stepwise fashion and mean variance increases monotonically with age.
The specific aims of Phase I are three: (1) Begin to accumulate ACS data on a more diverse population of older women and men from the Florida Geriatric Research Program: (2) Carry out a standardization of Form 2 of the ACS with this population; and (3) Set the stage for Phase II which will have as it's primary goal the use of the ACS to identify early signs of dementing illness.
