title: Use of the ten-point clock test to compare executive functioning across 24 months in patients with subcortical vascular dementia.
abstract: The Ten-point Clock Test can be used to identify early forms of Alzheimer's disease because it is reliable, well accepted, and easily administered at the bedside. Nevertheless, its clinical role in the detection of early dementia and its correlations with other cognitive processes is still under investigation. Vascular dementia is an uncertain nosological entity, in which unevenly distributed patterns of cognitive deficits comprising slowing of cognitive processing and impairment of executive function occur. The present study assessed how the Clock Test scores correlated with a number of other neuropsychological and functional tests in a sample of 144 patients with vascular dementia, who were followed for a period of 24 mo. At baseline, at 12 mo. and at 24 mo. subjects were administered a battery of tests, including the Mini-Mental State Examination, word fluency, visuospatial skills, an evaluation of hetero- and autotopognosia (knowledge of self), the Proverbs Test, and the Ten-point Clock Test. For these patients scores on the Clock Test correlated significantly with semantic abilities, with abstract reasoning capacities, visuospatial perception, and with right and left recognition.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Fisiologia e Patologia General, U.C.O. di Clinica Neurologica, Università degli Studi di Trieste, Italy. moretti@univ.trieste.it
authors.forename: Rita
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Moretti
authors.forename: Paola
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Torre
authors.forename: Rodolfo M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Antonello
authors.forename: Giuseppe
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Cazzato
authors.forename: Antonio
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bava
authors.forename: Peter J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Manos
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology; D001921:Brain / Q000473:pathology*; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000209:etiology*; D015140:Dementia, Vascular / Q000150:complications* / Q000473:pathology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D013997:Time Factors; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology