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A comparison of clinical, psychometric and behavioural memory tests: Findings from a community study of the early detection of dementia
Author(s) -
Beardsall Lynn,
Huppert Felicia A.
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
international journal of geriatric psychiatry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.28
H-Index - 129
eISSN - 1099-1166
pISSN - 0885-6230
DOI - 10.1002/gps.930060506
Subject(s) - dementia , psychology , recall , population , memory impairment , discriminant validity , discriminant function analysis , clinical psychology , psychometrics , sample (material) , developmental psychology , psychiatry , cognition , cognitive psychology , medicine , statistics , disease , mathematics , environmental health , pathology , internal consistency , chemistry , chromatography
Diagnostic criteria for dementia require assessment of the ability to learn new information. Ideally, this assessment should be brief and sensitive to early impairment. We present comparative data on a variety of memory tests administered to a population sample of elderly community residents who are being studied longitudinally. Of the three classes of memory tests, clinical, psychometric and everyday tests, discriminant function analysis indicated that, overall, the best discrimination between demented and non‐demented individuals was achieved by some everyday tests: recalling a news item, retracing a route, and recalling a name after learning a name‐photograph association. However, of the 11 tests examined in total, two were identified which together discriminated almost as efficiently as all 11 measures combined. These were recalling a name and recalling six objects. By comparison, the principal memory item in the Mini Mental State Examination, the recall of three words, produced poor discrimination. The two simple measures which provided good discrimination in this population sample may therefore be recommended to assess the ability to learn new information, where the aim of the assessment is the diagnosis of dementia.