Article

A number of tests are currently used in clinical and research settings for the assessment of patients with memory deficits. Among them, the Hopkins Verbal Learning Test (HVLT) is particularly appropriate for the longitudinal follow-up of patients with memory disorders because it exists in six parallel forms, and therefore avoids the risk of learning effect at retest. Since a test with these characteristics is not available in French, we decided to adapt a French version of the HVLT. METHODS: 180 normal subjects participated in the study. Their mean age was 41 years (SD=11), and they had had on average 12 years of schooling (SD=3). The subjects were randomly divided into 6 groups of 30 subjects. One of the six forms of the French version of the HVLT was administered orally to each group of subjects. Each form consisted of a list of 12 words belonging to 3 different semantic categories. For the construction of the French version of the HVLT, we adopted the same procedure as used in the original version of the test taking into account the French lexical and semantic characteristics of the items. In the first part of the test, the list was administered three times to the subjects. Following each administration, subjects were asked for an immediate free recall. Twenty minutes later, used for intercurrent tasks, subjects were asked for a delayed free recall, which was immediately followed by a recognition memory task. In this task, subjects listened to a list of 24 words, 12 belonging to the studied list and 12 were distractors; the subjects were asked to recognize the 12 studied words. RESULTS: The subjects' performance was equivalent in the six forms of the test, except for the immediate recall of Form 3 (which was excluded from the test). No significant difference emerged in free recall, delayed free recall, and recognition across the five remaining forms of the test. CONCLUSION: Our study provides a useful tool for the longitudinal evaluation of patients with memory impairment and may become the test of reference in European longitudinal clinical trials. The French adaptation of the HVLT represents only a first step, because it needs to be standardized, in order to provide norms, and validated, in order to provide values of sensitivity and specificity.

Langue : FRANCAIS