Clinical utility of three measures of frontal lobe dysfunction in neuropsychiatric samples

Abstract

The utility of the Word Fluency Test, Wisconsin Card-Sorting Test, and a shorter form of the Categories Test as screening instruments for detecting frontal lobe dysfunction in a neuropsychiatric setting was examined. On the basis of clinical and neurological examination, patients were assigned to one of three groups: frontal lobe injured, brain impaired excluding the frontal areas, and psychiatric with no evidence of brain dysfunctioning. It was possible to assign correctly 66.3% of the patients to their respective groups. The Word Fluency Test made the strongest contribution to the prediction of the presence of frontal lobe pathology, even when the effects of age and postmorbid intellectual functioning were controlled. The results were consistent with the interpretation of lowered verbal fluency and deficits in the capacity to suppress habitual behaviour as a major feature of frontal lobe dysfunctioning.