Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status Update (RBANS™ Update)       

Christopher Randolph  

Offering valuable enhancements, the RBANS Update provides a brief, individually administered battery to measure cognitive decline or improvement across these domains:

• Immediate Memory – List Learning and Story Memory
• Visuospatial/Constructional – Figure Copy and Line Orientation
• Language – Picture naming and Semantic Fluency
• Attention – Digit Span and Coding

• Delayed Memory – List Recall, List Recognition, Story Memory, and Figure Recall

 This instrument is used by clinicians to help:

• Screen for deficits in acute-care settings
• Track recovery during rehabilitation
• Track progression of neurological disorders

• Screen for neurocognitive status in adolescents

Features & Benefits

RBANS Update provides significant improvements, including:

• Downward age extension to 12:0 years
• Subtest scores now available in addition to index scores
• Manual updates, including new information on adolescents and review of RBANS-specific research conducted since original publication (1998)

• Equating studies for Forms C and D

Parallel Forms

Ideal for measuring change over time, RBANS Update offers four parallel forms. Form A offers a single set of norms based on age, gender, race, education, and geographic region with equating studies and adjustments for Forms B to D.

RBANS Update can also be used in a variety of ways including:

• As a stand-alone “core” battery for the detection and characterization of dementia in the elderly
• As a neuropsychological “screen battery” when lengthier standardization assessments are either impractical or inappropriate
• For repeat evaluations when an alternate form is needed to control for content practice effects

• In Clinical Trials to identify inclusion/exclusion criteria as well as efficacy and cognitive side effects

Setting-Specific Information

Although RBANS Update was originally developed with a primary focus on assessment of dementia, special group studies are available for Alzheimer’s Disease, Vascular Dementia, HIV Dementia, Huntington’s Disease, Parkinson’s Disease, Depression, Schizophrenia, and Closed Head Injury. With the additional collection of adolescent data, RBANS Update also has utility as a screener for neurocognitive status in younger patients as well. Finally, RBANS UPDATE has been used in a number of Clinical Trials.