Abstract
This study examines whether behavioral measures obtained in nondemented elderly can predict cognitive status at 2-year follow-up. Prior studies have established that delayed paragraph recall can help predict short-term risk for decline to mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer disease. It was examined whether prediction accuracy can be improved by adding a discrimination-and- generalization task that has previously been shown to be disrupted in nondemented elderly with hippocampal atrophy, a risk factor for Alzheimer disease. Fifty nondemented, medically healthy elderly patients received baseline clinical diagnosis and cognitive testing; 2 years later, patients received a follow-up clinical diagnosis of normal, mild cognitive impairment, or probable Alzheimer disease. In all, 2 baseline variables, delayed paragraph recall and generalization performance, were predictive of follow-up outcome with sensitivity of 81% and specificity of 91%-better than the classification accuracy based on either of these measures alone. These preliminary results suggest that these behavioral tasks may be useful tools in predicting short-term cognitive outcome in nondemented elderly.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 93-103 |
Number of pages | 11 |
Journal | Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry and Neurology |
Volume | 21 |
Issue number | 2 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jun 2008 |
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Clinical Neurology
- Geriatrics and Gerontology
- Psychiatry and Mental health
Keywords
- Aging
- Alzheimer disease
- Cognition
- Hippocampus
- Memory
- Mild cognitive impairment