Clinical utility of the Neuropsychological Assessment Battery (NAB) after unilateral stroke

The NAB is a comprehensive battery assessing five cognitive domains (Attention, Language, Memory, Spatial, Executive Function). Despite the advantage of co-normative domain data, its clinical utility is not well established because few studies have reported full-battery findings. The aim of this study was to determine if the NAB was sensitive to well documented hemispheric differences in language and spatial skills after unilateral stroke. We compared demographically matched control participants (n = 52) and individuals after left (LHD, n = 36) or right (RHD, n = 33) hemisphere damage due to stroke on the NAB, parts of the Western Aphasia Battery, and traditional visuospatial tasks. Both stroke groups showed impaired NAB Attention, Spatial, and Executive Functions relative to controls, while the LHD group was more impaired than control and RHD groups on Language and Memory modules. LHD patients with aphasia on traditional measures performed worse than control and non-aphasic LHD patients on all NAB domains. RHD patients with spatial impairment on traditional measures performed worse than controls, but not RHD patients without spatial impairment, on the NAB Spatial domain. Findings suggest the NAB is generally comparable to traditional language and visuospatial measures, and it sufficiently detects attention and executive deficits.