[Assessment of episodic memory in illiterate elderly]

Abstract

Assessing cognitive functions in illiterate people is a difficult task because most of the neuropsychological tests exploring episodic memory have been validated in formally educated people, are based on verbal material and, therefore, require a good knowledge of language. Two episodic memory tests (TNI93 and TMA93) designed to be used for cognitive impairment screening in illiterate people have been designed, then validated in a multicultural low-educated population. Four hundred and thirty seven subjects aged 60 and over, living in the Seine-Saint-Denis district, received a medical check up offered by the National Health Service and their episodic memory performance was examined with these screening tests. The performance obtained on these tests depends both on age and educational level, as expected. Normative data for screening purpose in population with low education and/or not fluent with the language of the examiner are presented.