Journal article
Mask wearing during neuropsychological assessment negatively impacts performance on verbal tests in older patients
Psychological assessment, Vol.35(11), pp.938-948
11/2023
DOI: 10.1037/pas0001261
PMCID: PMC11503660
PMID: 37902663
Abstract
Face masks are recommended to minimize the spread of COVID-19 and are required in many health care settings. Although masks have documented health advantages, they also negatively impact communication, an essential element of clinical neuropsychological assessment. Using a large clinical data set from a major academic medical center, we investigated the effect of mask wearing on neuropsychological test performance. Specifically, we examined performance on eight standard, widely used neuropsychological tests between a prepandemic (unmasked) and postpandemic (masked) group, composed of 754 and 837 adult patients, respectively. We compared performance on verbally mediated versus visually mediated tests, hypothesizing that the postpandemic group, compared to the prepandemic group, would perform significantly lower on the verbally mediated tests but not on the visually mediated tests. In partial support of the hypothesis, we found that the postpandemic group performed significantly worse on the Auditory Verbal Learning Test (AVLT; p = .001). Secondary analyses showed that age moderated the mask-related effect (p = .038), whereby patients 65 and older had significantly worse performance on Digit Span (p = .0027) and the AVLT (p = .0002) with masks on, while patients younger than 65 showed no significant differences. There were no significant differences on any visually mediated tests. These findings suggest that mask wearing during neuropsychological assessment compromises performance on verbally mediated tests in older patients. These findings are particularly relevant for neuropsychologists practicing in geriatric settings. Neuropsychologists performing assessments with masks should be aware that masks may artificially deflate patient scores for reasons unrelated to cognition or clinical condition.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Mask wearing during neuropsychological assessment negatively impacts performance on verbal tests in older patients
- Creators
- Amber Thomas - University of IowaDaniel Tranel - University of Iowa
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Psychological assessment, Vol.35(11), pp.938-948
- DOI
- 10.1037/pas0001261
- PMID
- 37902663
- PMCID
- PMC11503660
- NLM abbreviation
- Psychol Assess
- ISSN
- 1040-3590
- eISSN
- 1939-134X
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 11/2023
- Academic Unit
- Neurology; Psychological and Brain Sciences; Iowa Neuroscience Institute
- Record Identifier
- 9984501625802771
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