Validation of one-year reliable change in the RBANS for community-dwelling older adults with amnestic mild cognitive impairment.

Objective: The current study sought to externally validate previously published standardized regression-based (SRB) equations for the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status (RBANS) Indexes administered twice over a one-year period. Method: Hammers and colleagues' SRB prediction equations were applied to two independent samples of community-dwelling older adults with amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), including those recruited from the community ( n  = 64) and those recruited from a memory disorders clinic ( n  = 58). Results: While Observed Baseline and Observed Follow-up performances were generally comparable for both MCI samples over one year, both samples possessed significantly lower Observed One-Year Follow-up scores than were predicted based on Hammers and colleagues' development sample across many RBANS Indexes. Relatedly, both amnestic MCI samples possessed a greater percentage of participants either "declining" or failing to exhibit a long-term practice effect over one year relative to expectation across most Indexes. Further, the clinic-recruited amnestic MCI sample displayed worse baseline performances, smaller long-term practice effects, and greater proportions of individual participants exhibiting a decline across one year relative to the community amnestic MCI sample. Conclusions: These findings validate Hammers and colleagues' SRB prediction equations by (1) indicating their ability to identify clinically meaningful change across RBANS Indexes in independent samples, and (2) discriminating rates of cognitive change among cognitively nuanced samples.