Visual association memory test in differentiating early stage of Alzheimer's disease from vascular dementia.
We studied the results of the Visual Association Memory Test (VAMT) in differentiating Alzheimer's disease (AD) and vascular dementia (VaD). In addition, other basic neuropsychological tests, including the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and the Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR) were also used. Generally, with the VAMT, AD patients had a worse performance than VaD patients. Particularly among patients with a CDR = 0.5, the AD patients had statistically significantly lower VAMT scores (score less than 3) (p = 0.026) compared to those of VaD patients. However, the VAMT could not predict clinical severity or disease progression. The VAMT, as revealed in this study, is a brief, simply administered, and less biased test, and may offer a diagnostic adjunct to differentiate AD from VaD especially in an early dementia state.
Chuang
Wen-Li
WL
Department of Neurology, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital and University, Taipei, Taiwan.
Wang
Hsuan-Min
HM
Hsieh
Yu-Chen
YC
Chang
Ting-Fang
TF
Kuo
Hung-Chou
HC
Huang
Chin-Chang
CC
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000175:diagnosis*; D015140:Dementia, Vascular / Q000175:diagnosis*; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory; D008609:Mental Status Schedule; D008875:Middle Aged; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity