Rey‐Auditory Verbal Learning and Rey‐Osterrieth Complex Figure Design performance in Alzheimer's disease and closed head injury

Performance on the Rey‐Auditory Verbal Learning (R‐AVL) and Rey‐Osterrieth Complex Figure Design (R‐O CFD) tests was examined in patients (N = 94) with dementia of the Alzheimer's type (DAT) and closed head injury (CHI). On the R‐AVL, DAT patients demonstrated considerably greater impairment than CHI patients, along with a flat learning/retention curve that showed negligible improvement with repeated trials, recency effects only, and an excessive number of word intrusions (confabulation) on the recognition trial. CHI patients demonstrated both a recency and primacy effect along with improvement over repeated trials (positive slope learning curve). Both groups demonstrated impairment R‐O CFD recall; the DAT group again displayed substantially greater copying and recall deficits. Clinical guidelines are given for the use of the R‐AVL and R‐O CFD for these two patient populations.