%0 Journal Article
%A López-Higes Sánchez, Ramón
%A Fernandes, Sara M.
%A Rodrigues, Pedro F.S.
%A Paiva, Barbara
%A Rubio Valdehita, Susana
%A Del Río Grande, David Pedro
%T Verbal fluency with high executive load for early dementia's risk detection
%D 2025
%@ 1866-9808
%U https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/125091
%X Verbal fluency (VF) tasks are used in cognitive assessments to detect early signs ofneurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s. This study aimed to assess the contributionof VF tasks with varying executive processing loads to the early identification of cognitiveimpairment in the preclinical stage of subjective cognitive decline (SCD). A total of 97 olderadults were classified into three groups: healthy controls (HC), SCD and mild cognitiveimpairment (MCI). Participants completed phonemic, semantic, alternating and orthographic VF tasks. Education level significantly affected VF performance, with genderdifferences being inconsistent. The HC and SCD groups performed similarly in phonemicand semantic tasks but differed significantly in high-executive-load tasks, where SCDparticipants performed worse. MCI patients showed lower performance across all VF tasks.Discriminant and ROC analyses identified alternating and orthographic VF tasks as effectivemarkers for distinguishing cognitive status, supporting their potential for early detection ofAlzheimer’s disease.
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