A normative study of Russell's variant of the Wechsler Memory Scale in a healthy elderly population

E. W. Russell's (see record 1976-08657-001) variant of the Wechsler Memory Scale was administered to 175 elderly individuals in 4 age groups (65-69, 70-74, 75-79, and 80+ yrs) to provide normative data in a superior aged population and to determine if memory skills deteriorate with age even when chronic medical problems are not present. A clear age-related decline was present for the Visual Reproduction subtest, and a similar but less marked age effect was observed for Logical Memory. Delayed recall was consistently poorer than immediate recall for all age groups on both subtests. However, there were no age-related effects for the Percentage Retained variables, suggesting that aging does not affect the memory loss over a 30-min delay. Results demonstrate that verbal and spatial memory abilities progressively decline after age 65 yrs even in an aged population without medical problems and with above-average education and income. (10 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).