A screen for cognitive assessments for patients with vascular cognitive impairment no dementia.
OBJECTIVE
To screen for cognitive assessment for patients with vascular cognitive impairment (VCI) no dementia (V-CIND) from a set of cognitive measures.


METHODS
Extensive neuropsychological tests covering five cognitive domains were performed on 80 V-CIND patients and 80 normal controls. The impaired domains in V-CIND were determined and the most discriminating tests were selected to form a comprehensive assessment. The discriminating validity of the individual tests and the comprehensive assessment were explored.


RESULTS
Compared with the control group, five cognitive domains were all impaired in V-CIND group. World Health Organization-University of California-Los Angeles Auditory Verbal Learning Test (WHO-UCLA AVLT) immediate recall, Semantic Category Verbal Fluency Test (animal), Chinese version of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Test (WAIS-RC) Digit Symbol Subtest, and Block Design Subtest were finally selected to form a comprehensive assessment tool, which achieved a sensitivity of 92.5% and a specificity of 98.8% in differentiating V-CIND patients from normal controls. Even in the subjects with Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) scores of 28 or above, high discriminative validity was also obtained.


CONCLUSIONS
Our study revealed a multiple domain cognitive deficit in V-CIND patients. The comprehensive assessment tapping memory, executive functions, mental processing speed, and visuoconstructive skill may be potentially useful for an overall cognitive evaluation for V-CIND.
Zhou
Aihong
A
Department of Neurology, Xuanwu Hospital of the Capital Medical University, Beijing, China.
Jia
Jianping
J
D000368:Aged; D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D015577:Geriatric Assessment; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests / Q000592:standards*; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity