The following is the summary of “Naming ability assessment in neurocognitive disorders: a clinician’s perspective”  published in the January 2023 issue of Psychiatry by Georgiou, et al.

Diagnosing neurocognitive diseases (ND) can benefit from the detection of reduced naming capacity. A. There currently needs to be a comprehensive, practice-oriented summary of ND-validated name tests. In this article, researchers present and analyze the key characteristics of publicly and commercially available naming tests that have been shown to be useful in ND. Various databases, including PubMed, Medline, and Google Scholar, were searched. Searching reference lists led to the discovery of further studies. Articles published in journals that had already gone through this review process were the only ones considered. Patients with ND’s naming assessment tools, including stimulus type, administration time, and results, were summarized using a narrative- and tabular synthesis.

Word frequency statistics were used to compare the exams based on the average frequency of the language they tested. There are 12 established naming tests in ND, all of which use either visual or auditory cues. They range from 3 to 60 items in substance and from 1 to 20 minutes in administrative time. Most items have a low frequency of occurrence, as evidenced by the fact that the average frequency of the terms in each test taken was 2 or lower. 

Except for 1 exam, points are only awarded for properly identifying questions. There are seven freely accessible instruments, and 4  of those have at least one translation into another language. Knowledge of the properties of naming tests could lead to the widespread use of those with a short administration time but high diagnostic accuracy in the diagnostic workup of ND in primary healthcare and the use of more in-depth, visual or auditory tests in the diagnostic efforts of memory clinics, secondary and tertiary brain healthcare facilities.

Source: bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12888-022-04486-x