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KMID : 1100220070060010012
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Dementia and Neurocognitive Disorders
2007 Volume.6 No. 1 p.12 ~ p.17
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Usefulness of the Korean Trail Making Test for the Elderly (K-TMT-e) in Detecting the Frontal Lobe Dysfunction
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Parl Jae-Seol
Kang Yeon-Wook
Yi Han-Seung
Kim Yun-Jung
Ma Hyeo-Il
Lee Byung-Chul
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Abstract
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This study was conducted to determine the usefulness of the newly developed Korean Trail Making Test for the elderly (K-TMT-e) in detecting frontal lobe dysfunction. The subjects were 43 Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients and 43 normal elderly (NE) volunteers. The subjects were given the K-TMT-e along with other frontal/executive tests such as Digit Span Test, Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure Test-Copy, Contrasting Program Test, Go-No-Go Test, Controlled Oral Word Association Test, Korean-Color Word Stroop Test, and Wisconsin Card Sorting Test. As scoring variables of the K-TMT-e, "time-to-completion" and the number of errors for each part were recorded. In addition, the difference in time-to-completion between two parts (B-A) and the ratio of the time-to-completion of two parts (B/A) were computed. The PD group showed significantly longer "time-to-completion" for Part B and greater "B-A" than the NE group. However, there were no significant differences in "number of errors" of each part and "B/A" between the two groups. Partial correlation analyses, which controlled for age and education level, were conducted to examine the relationships between the K-TMT-e and other frontal lobe tests in each group. Significant correlations were found between the K-TMT-e and most frontal lobe tests in both groups. Notably, "B-A" showed significant correlations with the greatest number of frontal lobe tests in both groups. Our results showed that the K-TMT-e is sensitive enough to detect the frontal lobe dysfunction in patients with early stage PD who have not progressed to dementia. Therefore, it suggests that the K-TMT-e is a very useful and valid instrument to evaluate frontal lobe function.
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KEYWORD
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Korean Trail Making Test for the elderly (K-TMT-e), Frontal lobe function, Parkinson’s disease
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