Effect of age and education level on the Trail Making Test in the Brazilian healthy sample
Amer Cavalheiro Hamdan, Eli Mara Hamdan
Abstract
The Trail Making Test (TMT) has been a useful tool to neuropsychological assessment. Objective: to analyze the influence of age and educational level on the performance in TMT in the healthy Portuguese speakers. Methods: Participants were adult volunteers. The criteria for exclusion were history of neurological disease, psychiatric illness, substance abuse, learning disabilities, or any other difficulty that may interfere with testing. The sample (n = 318) were divided in four age groups: (1) very young (n=92; ages 18–34), (2) young adults (n=66; ages 35–49), (3) middle-aged adults (n=117; ages 50–64), (4) elderly adults (n=43; ages 65-81), and tree educational level: (1) low educational level (2-8 years), (2) middle educational level (9-11 years), and (3) high educational level (≥ 12 years). Results: Correlations among the demographic variables and scores on Trails A and B show that age and educational level were the two variables affected by them in a higher degree. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was performed on these data for TMT-A and TMT-B and results in significant influence of age and educational level (p < 0.001). Post-hoc analyses of age did not reveal differences between middle-aged group and elderly adults in performance of TMT-A, and difference between middle and high educational level in performed of TMT-A and TMT-B. Conclusion: In accordance with prior approaches data, age and educational level affected the performance the Brazilian subjects in the TMT.
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