title: Clinical characterization of Alzheimer's disease: reliability of 'age at onset' and a new descriptor, 'age at shift'.
abstract: To determine the interrater reliability of clinical descriptors for Alzheimer's disease (AD), we assessed the degree of agreement among four clinicians who rated 21 patients during a longitudinal study. Despite variability in response patterns, degree of agreement for determining age at onset of dementia was statistically significant (P less than 0.005). We also found significant agreement (P less than 0.0001) among three clinicians for the clinical descriptor, "age at shift" from questionable to probable AD, according to the National Institutes of Health Consensus Criteria. These data demonstrate that both retrospective and prospective descriptors can be reliably determined in the clinical assessment of AD.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, UCLA School of Medicine.
authors.forename: G W
authors.initials: GW
authors.lastname: Small
authors.forename: D E
authors.initials: DE
authors.lastname: Kuhl
authors.forename: D G
authors.initials: DG
authors.lastname: Fujikawa
authors.forename: J W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Ashford
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed