Assessment of cognition using the Rao's Brief Repeatable Battery of Neuropsychological Tests on a group of Brazilian patients with multiple sclerosis

Arq Neuropsiquiatr. 2011 Dec;69(6):887-91. doi: 10.1590/s0004-282x2011000700007.

Abstract

To assess the cognition of patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) using the Rao's Brief Repeatable Battery of Neuropsychological Tests (BRB-N).

Method: BRB-N was translated and adapted for control subjects. Subsequently, it was applied to a group of patients with relapsing-remitting (RR) MS.

Results: The assessment on the healthy controls (n=47) showed that the correlation between tests on the same cognitive domain was high and that there was a five-factor solution that explained 90% of the total variance. Except for the Word List Generation subset of tests, the performance of patients with RRMS (n=39) was worse than that of the healthy controls.

Conclusion: BRB-N is a relatively simple method to assess cognition of patients with MS in the daily clinic. It does not take long to apply and does not require special skills or equipment.

Publication types

  • Evaluation Study

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Brazil
  • Case-Control Studies
  • Cognition Disorders / diagnosis*
  • Cognition Disorders / etiology
  • Cultural Characteristics
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Multiple Sclerosis / complications*
  • Neuropsychological Tests*
  • Reproducibility of Results
  • Severity of Illness Index
  • Translating
  • Young Adult