Purpose: Word retrieval deficits are among the earliest language impairments in mild neurocognitive disorder (Mild NCD), a transitional stage between healthy aging and dementia. This study aimed to examine group-based differences in confrontation naming performance between cognitively healthy older adults and individuals with Mild NCD. Methods: Sixty Tamil-speaking participants aged 60 and above were recruited and grouped into cognitively healthy controls (n = 30) and Mild NCD (n = 30), based on montreal cognitive assessment-Tamil, cognitive linguistic assessment protocol in Tamil and fifth edition of diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders criteria. Naming accuracy and latency were measured using, test of naming in Tamil, an E-naming tool developed in Tamil. Mann- Whitney U-tests were used to compare group performances. Results: Significant differences were observed between the groups. Healthy controls showed near-ceiling naming accuracy (97.99 ± 2.85%) and shorter latency (3,369.15 ± 1,096.39 ms), whereas individuals with Mild NCD had reduced accuracy (79.72 ± 9.49%) and prolonged latency (9,989.81 ± 2,887.82 ms), with p < 0.001 for both measures. Conclusion: Visual confrontation naming tasks, particularly when measuring both accuracy and latency, are sensitive to early lexical retrieval deficits in Mild NCD. These findings support their utility in culturally appropriate, early screening of cognitive-linguistic changes among aging Tamilspeaking populations.
Chandrasekar et al. (Fri,) studied this question.