Objective: To verify if the battery of tests proposed by us is easy to administer and doesn’t get false positive in a group of apparently healthy subjects over 65.
Materials and Methods: The battery of tests:
1) administration of three words (apple, table, penny);
2) Backword spelling of the word “sport”;
3) list the names of as many animals within 30 seconds as one can remember;
4) asking the date (day, month, year: admitted as normal if ± 2 days);
5) recall of the three words;
6) Clock Drawing Test (CDT);
7) Alzheimer’s Quick Test (AQT).
Time of administration: 5 minutes. All subjects underwent MMSE and a brief interview has been conducted with the person aware of the status of subject to be evaluated. CES-D scale for depression was administred to all subjects. Level of education was reported as years of school attendance.
Results: 87 subjects (44 females and 43 males) mean age 73,5 ± 6,2 years (range 60-96), were evaluated. MMSE (mean=28.0)(SD=1.3)(range=25-30) Tests from 1 to 5 (mean=27.2) (SD=6.0)(range=10-40) Clock Drawing Test (mean=8.4)(SD=1.9)(range=3-10) Alzheimer’s Quik Test (mean=79) (SD=21.8)(range=47-150) Ces-D Scale(mean=3.5) (SD=5.0)(range=0-20) Years of school attendance (mean=5.1) (SD=1.7)(range=3-13) ADL(mean=5.9) (SD=0.2)(range=4-6) IADL(mean=7.7) (SD=1.1)(range=1-8) The Alzheimer’s Quick Test correlates positively with age (p=.001), and a negatively with MMSE (p=.014), Clock Drawing Test (p=.008), and with tests 1 to 5 (p=.000).Tests from 1 to 5 correlate with years of school attendance (p=.002), and with MMSE score(p=.000). Intercorrelation was demonstrated between Clock Drawing Test and Ces-D Scale(p=.007).
Conclusion: An overall trend of decline of the tests with age is shown from our data. From clinical evidence it doesn't seem that MMSE is a sensitive instrument, Clock Drawing Test and Alzheimer’s Quick Test show a certain variability that suggest the necessity of further studies. The Clock Drawing Test is focused on praxia; Alzheimer’s Quick on recognition, attention, semantic memory, and on afasia, important elements in the first phases of dementia. These aspects have light important in the results of MMSE. In our opinion, it is essential to follow-up on subjects to study the variability time of Alzheimer’s Quick Test, and Clock Drawing Test, to avoid false positive, or conversely false negative from MMSE.
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