Utility of the Bender Gestalt Test for differentiation of dementia with Lewy bodies from Alzheimer's disease in patients showing mild to moderate dementia.
OBJECTIVE
We examined the utility of the Bender Gestalt Test (BGT) for the differentiation of dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) from Alzheimer's disease (AD), comparing BGT scores between DLB and AD patients showing mild to moderate dementia.


METHODS
Eighteen DLB patients, 36 AD patients controlled by age, years of education, Clinical Dementia Rating and Mini Mental State Examination scores, and 21 nondemented elderly participants controlled by age and years of education were subjected to the BGT. Their BGT performances were scored according to the Pascal-Suttell method.


RESULTS
The DLB group showed significantly higher (that is worse) BGT scores than the other groups. When a cutoff point of 98 was used to differentiate DLB from AD, the patients exceeding 98 were 94% in the DLB group, 17% in the AD group and 0% in the control group. The sensitivity and specificity of this cutoff point were 0.94 and 0.89, respectively.


CONCLUSIONS
The BGT is a useful neuropsychological test to differentiate DLB from AD.
Murayama
Norio
N
Department of Psychiatry, Juntendo Tokyo Koto Geriatric Medical Center, Juntendo University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan.
Iseki
Eizo
E
Yamamoto
Ryoko
R
Kimura
Michihiro
M
Eto
Ko
K
Arai
Heii
H
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000175:diagnosis*; D001538:Bender-Gestalt Test; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D020961:Lewy Body Disease / Q000175:diagnosis*; D008297:Male; D012720:Severity of Illness Index