A web-based normative data tool for assessing cognitive performance in healthy older Australians

A decline in cognition greater than expected with ageing and accompanied by subjective cognitive concerns or functional changes may be indicative of a dementing disorder. • The capacity to correctly identify cognitive decline relies on comparisons with normative data from a suitably matched healthy reference group with relatively homogeneous demographic features. • Formal assessment of cognition is usually performed by specialist neuropsychologists trained in administration and interpretation of psychometric tests. With a scarcity of normative data from large cohorts of older adults, Australian neuropsychologists commonly use representative data from small international studies. • Data from 727 healthy older Australians participating in the Australian Imaging, Biomarkers and Lifestyle (AIBL) Flagship Study of Ageing have been used to create a normative dataset. • A web-based calculator was developed to simplify the time-consuming process of comparing cognitive performance scores with these representative data.