Background: Naming difficulties have recently garnered more interest in elderly individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). We anticipate that naming tests with the consideration of response time can provide more informative and distinct neuropsychological profiles of individuals with MCI. Methods: Naming tests were administered to 76 elderly individuals with MCI and 149 healthy elderly (HE). We analyzed the impact of MCI on naming performance and occurrence of “delayed” response. We also validated the predictive power of naming tests with a time-constrained scoring system. Results: MCI participants performed poorer on the noun naming test than HE participants (p = 0.014). MCI was significantly associated with the occurrence of “delayed” response on the noun (odds ratio [OR] = 3.57; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.78-7.17) and verb naming tests (OR = 4.66; 95% CI = 2.07-10.46). The time-constrained naming scores were significantly better able to distinguish the MCI from the HE group than the conventional spontaneous naming score on both the noun (p < 0.001) and verb (p = 0.002) naming tests. Conclusions: Our findings broaden the knowledge related to the naming ability in individuals with MCI, with respect to the response time. We also confirmed the validity of the naming tests by applying the “delayed” responses as supplementary assessments in the diagnosis of MCI.

Objectives:The Boston Naming Test (BNT) is a widely used neuropsychological test for evaluating language ability and mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Several different abbreviated forms of the BNT have been used in previous research and clinical settings. For efficiency, valid and sensitive abbreviated forms of the BNT are useful. However, there has been no study that focused on comparison among various forms of the BNT and MCI. Thus, we conducted a meta-analysis of studies that assessed subjects with MCI alongside normal elderly with one of three different forms of the BNT: 60 items (BNT-60), 30 items (BNT-30), and 15 items (BNT-15). Methods: A total of 41 studies (19 for BNT-60, 5 for BNT-30, and 17 for BNT-15) were included in the present meta-analysis. Effect sizes were obtained by Hedges's g with a 95% confidence interval. Results: The random-effects meta-analysis model composite with all forms of the BNT showed that MCI subjects performed lower than the normal elderly on the BNT. Additionally, MCI subjects acquired significantly lower scores than normal elderly in all different forms of the BNT. Conclusion: MCI subjects show significantly lower performance even in the shortest form of the BNT (BNT-15). Therefore, it seems reasonable to conclude that an abbreviated form of the BNT can be used effectively in clinical settings.

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