The Brief Cognitive Battery-Edu (BCB-Edu) contains nine tests, seven of which are
related to the memory of drawings, and has good accuracy in the diagnosis of
cognitive impairment.ObjectivesTo evaluate the influence of age, gender and educational level on the
performance in tests related to memory of drawings of the BCB-Edu in healthy
subjects.MethodsParticipants were adult volunteers; exclusion criteria were illiteracy,
neurologic or psychiatric disorders, visual or hearing impairment, untreated
chronic clinical conditions, alcoholism, use of drugs, and for those aged 65
or over, an informant report of cognitive or functional impairment. We
evaluated 325 individuals (207 women), with a mean age of 47.1
(±16.8) years, ranging from 19 to 81, and a mean of 9.8 (±5.0)
schooling-years. Univariate analyses, correlations and logistic regression
were employed (α=0.05).ResultsThere were significant negative correlations between age and the scores in
four of the seven tests. However, schooling-years were positively correlated
to the scores, where schooling-years decreased with age in this sample (rho=
-0.323; p<0.001). Logistic regression confirmed that gender influenced
the learning of drawings, where women performed better, while age influenced
incidental memory, immediate memory, learning and delayed recall of the
drawings, and schooling-years influenced visual identification, immediate
memory, learning, delayed recall and recognition of the drawings.ConclusionGender, age and education influence the performance on the memory of drawings
of the BCB-Edu, although the extent of these influences differs according to
the nature of the test.