The validity of psychometric instruments for detection of dementia inthe elderly general population
R. Heun
Bok Engelsk 1998
| Utgitt | 1998
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| Omfang | Side 368- 380
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| Opplysninger | Objective. To compare the validity of different instruments forscreening and diagnosis of dementia and to provide threshold scoresfor these purposes, ie screening focusing on a high sensitivity anddiagnosis focusing on a high specificity.Setting. 287 subjects from a general population sample who hadcompleted more than one of these psychometric tests.Method's. The performances of the Structured Interview for theDiagnosis of Dementia of the Alzheimer Type, Multi-Infarct Dementiaand Dementias of Other Aetiology according to ICD-10 and DSM-III-R,the Mini-Mental State Examination, the Blessed Dementia Rating Scale,the Global Deterioration Scale, the Verbal Fluency Test, the WordList Learning Task, the Trail Making Test and the Labyrinth Test werecompared using receiver operating characteristics analysis.Results. The validity of composite instruments for the discriminationof dementia and cognitive health was higher than the validity ofindividual tests. However, some cognitive tests, ie verbal fluencyand immediate recall of words, reached a high validity, making themuseful and short screening instruments for dementia.Conclusion. There is no perfect instrument for screening anddiagnosis of dementia. Different threshold scores for differentpurposes were provided in the present study. Recommendations forimproving the validity of the Delayed Word List Learning Task fordiscriminating dementia and cognitive health include the expansion oflist length and shortening of delay. (C) 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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