Telephone-administered semantic fluency task in older adults without dementia in relation to in-person…

Abstract

Objective: Semantic fluency is an essential part of the cognitive assessment of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), but the utility of the telephone-administered version in detecting impairment in its in-person counterpart, or the associations with AD biomarkers, is unclear.

Methods: Participants without previously diagnosed dementia from the population-based TWINGEN study (n = 200) completed telephone-administered 1-minute animal naming and in person-administered Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer’s Disease – neuropsychological battery (CERAD-nb) and provided blood sample for determining plasma phosphorylated tau217 (p-tau217).

Results: The two modalities showed a moderate-to-high correlation (r = .63), with a bias of 3.41 words favoring in-person administration. Older age and lower education, but not plasma p-tau217, were significantly associated with poorer semantic fluency in both modalities. Area under the receiver operating characteristics curve was .76 (95% CI: .65; .88) for impairment in in-person semantic fluency and .70 (95% CI: .56; .84) for CERAD-nb total score. Group differences for p-tau217 status were found using a three-range approach: most (60%) with low animal naming score had high p-tau217 whereas most (73%) with high score had low p-tau217 (χ2[2] = 9.41, p = .009).

Conclusions: Telephone-administered animal naming can identify individuals with semantic fluency impairment with some caveats.

Keywords: Dementia; Alzheimer disease; psychometrics; neuropsychological tests; neuropsychology; cognitive aging

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BibTeX

@misc{riekkinen2026telephoneadministered,
  title = {{Telephone-administered semantic fluency task in older adults without dementia in relation to in-person testing and plasma phosphorylated tau-217}},
  author = {Vilma Riekkinen and Karin Lohi and Aino Aaltonen and Sanna-Kaisa Herukka and Tarja Kokkola and Sari Kärkkäinen and Heiko Runz and Aarno Palotie and Valtteri Julkunen and Eero Vuoksimaa},
  howpublished = {PsyArXiv},
  year = {2026},
  month = sep,
  doi = {10.31234/osf.io/nfkq7_v1},
  url = {https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/nfkq7_v1/},
  note = {CC BY 4.0},
}

RIS

TY  - UNPB
TI  - Telephone-administered semantic fluency task in older adults without dementia in relation to in-person testing and plasma phosphorylated tau-217
AU  - Vilma Riekkinen
AU  - Karin Lohi
AU  - Aino Aaltonen
AU  - Sanna-Kaisa Herukka
AU  - Tarja Kokkola
AU  - Sari Kärkkäinen
AU  - Heiko Runz
AU  - Aarno Palotie
AU  - Valtteri Julkunen
AU  - Eero Vuoksimaa
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/09/04
PB  - PsyArXiv
DO  - 10.31234/osf.io/nfkq7_v1
UR  - https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/nfkq7_v1/
AB  - Objective: Semantic fluency is an essential part of the cognitive assessment of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), but the utility of the telephone-administered version in detecting impairment in its in-person counterpart, or the associations with AD biomarkers, is unclear.  Methods: Participants without previously diagnosed dementia from the population-based TWINGEN study (n = 200) completed telephone-administered 1-minute animal naming and in person-administered Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer’s Disease – neuropsychological battery (CERAD-nb) and provided blood sample for determining plasma phosphorylated tau217 (p-tau217).  Results: The two modalities showed a moderate-to-high correlation (r = .63), with a bias of 3.41 words favoring in-person administration. Older age and lower education, but not plasma p-tau217, were significantly associated with poorer semantic fluency in both modalities. Area under the receiver operating characteristics curve was .76 (95% CI: .65; .88) for impairment in in-person semantic fluency and .70 (95% CI: .56; .84) for CERAD-nb total score. Group differences for p-tau217 status were found using a three-range approach: most (60%) with low animal naming score had high p-tau217 whereas most (73%) with high score had low p-tau217 (χ2[2] = 9.41, p = .009).  Conclusions: Telephone-administered animal naming can identify individuals with semantic fluency impairment with some caveats.  Keywords: Dementia; Alzheimer disease; psychometrics; neuropsychological tests; neuropsychology; cognitive aging
ER  -

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