Learning and generalization tasks predict short-term cognitive outcome in nondemented elderly.
This study examines whether behavioral measures obtained in nondemented elderly can predict cognitive status at 2-year follow-up. Prior studies have established that delayed paragraph recall can help predict short-term risk for decline to mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer disease. It was examined whether prediction accuracy can be improved by adding a discrimination-and-generalization task that has previously been shown to be disrupted in nondemented elderly with hippocampal atrophy, a risk factor for Alzheimer disease. Fifty nondemented, medically healthy elderly patients received baseline clinical diagnosis and cognitive testing; 2 years later, patients received a follow-up clinical diagnosis of normal, mild cognitive impairment, or probable Alzheimer disease. In all, 2 baseline variables, delayed paragraph recall and generalization performance, were predictive of follow-up outcome with sensitivity of 81% and specificity of 91%-better than the classification accuracy based on either of these measures alone. These preliminary results suggest that these behavioral tasks may be useful tools in predicting short-term cognitive outcome in nondemented elderly.
Myers
Catherine E
CE
Department of Psychology, Rutgers University, Newark, NJ 01102, USA. myers@pavlov.rutgers.edu
Kluger
Alan
A
Golomb
James
J
Gluck
Mark A
MA
Ferris
Steven
S
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D003118:Color Perception; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D018450:Disease Progression; D005260:Female; D005793:Generalization, Psychological; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D009949:Orientation; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011337:Probability Learning; D011379:Prognosis; D011594:Psychometrics; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D012016:Reference Values; D018570:Risk Assessment