The effect of aging on verbal fluency in South Indians

Semantic verbal fluency tests are used as a measure of cognitive function to assess language and executive function. Secondary to increasing life spans, there are increasing numbers of older individuals at work places. Our study was done to assess the effect of aging on verbal fluency in South Indians. 50 controls aged 20-50 years (Group I) , 50 subjects aged 60-75 years (Group II) and 50 subjects aged above 75 years (Group III) of both sexes who were cognitively unimpaired with a minimum 6 th standard education took part in the study. The semantic category verbal fluency test and verbal mental tracking test were administered. Comparison of the verbal fluency scores between Group I versus Group II (p=0.00) and Group I versus Group III (p=0.00) was significant. Comparison of the verbal mental tracking scores between Group I versus Group II (p=0.002) and between Group I versus Group III (p=0.00) was also significant. However there were no significant differences in the number of perseverative errors (repetitions) between controls and subjects. Our study therefore showed that while verbal fluency declined significantly with aging, there was no evidence of cognitive inflexibility and executive dysfunction with aging. Keywords–Aging, Cognition, Cognitive inflexibility, Executive dysfunction, semantic verbal fluency test.