Designing a Brief Alzheimer Screen (BAS).
BACKGROUND
With advances in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease (AD), clinical focus has shifted to early patient identification. Memory recall tests and category fluency distinguish normal individuals from early AD patients.


OBJECTIVE
Develop a brief test for general practitioners to screen for AD. Design. Examination of items from the MMSE and category fluency.


METHODS
A Brief Alzheimer Screen (BAS) was developed from cognitive assessments on 406 normal subjects and 342 mild AD patients in the CERAD (Consortium to Establish a Registry for AD) dataset. The derived measure was then applied to a second validation sample.


METHODS
Logistic regression was used to derive a predictive equation, which was then applied to two validation samples to estimate sensitivity and specificity.


RESULTS
The resulting logistic model for discriminating between mild AD and controls included: recall of 3 words, number of animals named in 30 seconds, date, and spelling of WORLD backwards, (p < 0.001 for each) accounting for 77% of the variance. When applied to the validation samples, sensitivity and specificity were over 99% and 87%, respectively.


CONCLUSIONS
These data support the use of the BAS as a potential screen of patients over 60 years of age.
Mendiondo
Marta S
MS
School of Public Health, Sanders-Brown Center on Aging, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40536, USA. marta@uky.edu
Ashford
J Wesson
JW
Kryscio
Richard J
RJ
Schmitt
Frederick A
FA
D000368:Aged; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology; D005194:Family Practice; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D008609:Mental Status Schedule / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008875:Middle Aged; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012372:ROC Curve; D012042:Registries / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D014481:United States