title: Visual association memory test in differentiating early stage of Alzheimer's disease from vascular dementia.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital and University, Taipei, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Wen-Li
authors.initials: WL
authors.lastname: Chuang
authors.forename: Hsuan-Min
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Yu-Chen
authors.initials: YC
authors.lastname: Hsieh
authors.forename: Ting-Fang
authors.initials: TF
authors.lastname: Chang
authors.forename: Hung-Chou
authors.initials: HC
authors.lastname: Kuo
authors.forename: Chin-Chang
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Huang
mesh_terms: 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