Wisconsin Card Sort Test performance in a healthy elderly population

Abstract

A 64-card version of the Wisconsin Card Sort Test (WCST) was administered to 5 groups (n = 95), aged 17 to 25, 64 to 69, 70 to 74, 75 to 79 and 80 to 87 years. The elderly groups were chosen for their lack of medical problems in order to determine if previously reported age-related deficits were due to chronic medical problems or to aging per se. The resulting pattern of means showed statistically significant differences only for number of categories attained and total number of errors. For both variables, the 80- to 87-year-old group performed more poorly than the 64- to 69-year-old group. These results, although consistent with previous findings suggestive of frontal lobe vulnerability in old age, indicate that deterioration is less marked for a healthy elderly population.