Performance of older adults on MTL- BR Battery: ARE There differences in healthy aging? A pilot study

Abstract

Objectives Characterize and better understand differences that can occur in performing language tasks with advancing age in order to observe if the current norms of MTL-BR Battery obtained with individuals up 75 years of age could also be applied to old-old-individuals. Methods 80 participants, stratified into two age groups: 40 individuals aged 60–75 and 40 individuals aged 76–90 years, were submitted to an extensive language assessment by Montreal Toulouse Language Battery-Brazilian version (MTL-BR). Results A statistically significant difference was found between both groups on the tasks of oral comprehension of sentences, narrative discourse (oral and written), written dictation, repetition of words, reading aloud of sentences and numbers, verbal naming and written numerical calculation. Discussion The study showed that aging negatively affected performance on some language tasks. The results obtained in all tasks may be useful for comparative analyses in the clinical evaluation of old-old individuals with language complaints submitted to the MTL-BR Battery. On the one hand, subtests that typically exhibit ceiling effects in healthy populations, if found to be impaired, may clearly indicate the presence of a language disorder. On the other hand, data related to tasks that showed age-related differences should be interpreted with caution. In this sense, the data obtained on the performance of old-old individuals may guide the interpretation of the language assessment using the MTL-BR Battery or similar language assessment procedures.