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The Rivermead Behavioural Memory Test - Extended Version
Authors:
WILSON, B.A., CLARE, L., BADDELEY, A.D., Cockburn, J., WATSON, P., & Tate, R.
Reference:
Bury St. Edmunds: Thames Valley Test Company
Year of publication:
1999
CBU number:
3747
Abstract:
The original Rivermead Behavioural Memory Test (RBMT) was published in 1985 and has been translated into 14 languages. It is a useful clinical tool for brain injured people with moderate or severe memory problems. Norms for elderly people, adolescents and children aged between 5 and 10 years appeared in 1989, 1990 and 1996 respectively. Despite its success, the RBMT is insufficiently sensitive to detect mild deficits whether these are due to brain damage or to a drug or stressor. In order to enhance the testÃs sensitivity, we doubled the amount to be remembered and produced two versions of the RBMT-E (the extended or difficult test). We carried out two studies, one with 197 non brain injured subjects each of whom were assessed on two versions of the RBMT-E in counterbalanced order. The second study compared brain injured patients on the original version and the extended version. Our results from study 1 showed that the two parallel versions of the new test were sensitive to age and IQ effects in non brain injured subjects. The second study showed that the RBMT-E does indeed separate patients with reasonable scores on the original test into good, average, poor and impaired subgroups, i.e. it is a more sensitive discriminator than the standard version of the test.