Problems in insuring informed consent may be of greater significance for elderly adults with low levels of vocabulary and education. To protect the rights of these elderly individuals it may be necessary to use tests for comprehension before participation in research investigations. (Author)

Examined comprehension of and memory for information on prescription labels as function of age, memory load, and study time across three experiments with young and old adults. Older adults consistently manifested poorer recall of prescription information than did younger adults. Both young and old adults had substantial difficulty comprehending…

Purpose: Many older adults have inadequate health-related literacy, which is associated with poor health outcomes. Thus, it is important to identify determinants of health literacy. We investigated relationships between health literacy and general cognitive and sensory abilities, as well as education, health, and demographic variables, in a…