Psychiatr. praxi 2018; 19(3e): e10-e19 | DOI: 10.36290/psy.2018.037

The experimental use of the Olomouc test of figural fluency on people with Parkinson´s disease

Mgr. Alena Háková¹, doc. PhDr. Martin Lečbych, Ph.D.², Mgr. Markéta Večerková³

¹ Psychiatrická klinika FN HK

² klinický psycholog v privátní ordinaci klinické psychologie a psychoterapie v Uherském Brodě

³ Neurologická klinika FN Olomouc

This study refers to the experimental application of the Olomouc Figural Fluency Test (OFFT), used mostly for executive functions (EF) assessment, inpatients with Parkinson disease. OFFT was administered as a part of a battery of tests to a group of 30 patients. There were included individuals withidiopathic Parkinson disease G20 (n = 17) and with the diagnosis of secondary Parkinsonism G21 (n = 13) in the group. The test battery comprisedGraphomotor test in two levels (GPMT1 and GPMT2), Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure (RCFT), Verbal Fluency test (FAS), Categorial Fluency test, OFFTand Beck Depression Inventory scale (BDI-II). According to the literature and research up to now on this topic we assumed that the deterioratedmotor activity of the patients will influence negatively the performance in OFFT. First of all we compared our results with previous performancecharacteristics in OFFT in non-clinical population (n = 146). In the second step we focused on considering the influence of the graphomotor abilitieson the performance in OFFT in our clinical group. The correlation analysis proved statistically significant negative correlation between the time ofGPMT and the total performance (TP) in OFFT (TP and GPMT1 = -0,43; TP and GPMT2 = -0,46) and between the time of GPMT1 and the total numberof figures (TN; r = -0,40). Furthermore the correlations between TP and other test methods were proved to be statistically significant too. Theinfluence of the depressive symptomatology on the performance in any of used tests was not confirmed. Equally no difference was registered inthe performance of the group G20 and G21. The research shows that the quantitive performance in OFFT is to certain extent negatively influencedby the deteriorated level of graphomotor abilities. However the OFFT seems to be a useful additional tool for qualitative analysis of the executivefunctions. Among the limits of this study count a small sample of participants, their occasional selection and heterogenity.

Keywords: executive functions, Parkinson´s disease, figural fluency, neuropsychology, motoric

Published: October 15, 2018  Show citation