Telephone-based Hopkins Verbal Learning Test-Revised as a pre-screening tool for identifying SuperAgers.

OBJECTIVE

Efficient remote screening is needed to identify adults aged ≥80 years with exceptional memory, an uncommon phenotype relevant to cognitive-resilience research, before resource-intensive in-person evaluation. This study examined the optimal telephone-administered episodic-memory cutoff for identifying individuals likely to meet the in-person episodic-memory criterion used for SuperAger classification.

METHOD: Retrospective analysis included 163 participants who completed multidomain telephone prescreening (orientation, attention/executive function, language, memory, depression symptoms) and in-person eligibility assessment. Analyses focused on memory performance. The Youden Index identified the optimal cutoff for predicting the in-person RAVLT delayed-recall (RAVLT-DR) criterion used in SuperAger classification, with performance assessed by sensitivity, specificity, and the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC).

RESULTS

The telephone-administered Hopkins Verbal Learning Test-Revised (HVLT-R) delayed recall showed good discrimination for meeting the in-person RAVLT-DR criterion (optimal cutoff ≥9, AUC = 0.80, sensitivity = 85%; specificity = 61%).

CONCLUSIONS

Within a multidomain telephone prescreening protocol, HVLT-R delayed recall may enrich candidates for in-person exceptional memory aging phenotyping and improve screening efficiency.