title: The performance of the Rowland Universal Dementia Assessment Scale (RUDAS) for cognitive screening in a geriatric outpatient setting.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Dementia is prevalent in the elderly but it is usually unrecognized. The Rowland Universal Dementia Assessment Scale (RUDAS) appears to be a good screening tool for dementia detection. The objectives are to validate RUDAS-Thai for detecting dementia according to Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders- IV-Text Revised (DSM-IV-TR) criteria in a geriatric outpatient setting and to determine its optimal cut point.
  
  
  METHODS
  This is a cross-sectional study in which the target population is patients from a Geriatric and Neurology Outpatient Clinic, Srinagarind Hospital, Khon Kaen University who were aged 60 years or above. The content validity and test-retest reliability of the RUDAS-Thai were performed initially. It was administered to each participant. Then a specialist physician assessed each participant for dementia.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Eighty-nine (44.5%) subjects had dementia, 89 (44.5%) had normal cognition and 22 (11%) had mild cognitive impairment. The area under the Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was 0.82 (0.75-0.87). The optimal cut point was 24/30; it provided sensitivity and specificity of 78.7% and 61.8%, respectively. It was not influenced by age and gender but by educational level.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The RUDAS-Thai is a good screening tool for dementia detection in a geriatric outpatient setting. It is portable, short-time consuming, and avoids some limitations of the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE). However, education does affect the scores. The scores of 24 or lower is an optimal cut point for an indication of developing dementia.
authors.affiliation: Division of Geriatric Medicine, Internal Medicine Department, Faculty of Medicine, Khon Kaen University, Khon Kaen, Thailand. lpanit@kku.ac.th
authors.forename: Panita
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Limpawattana
authors.forename: Somsak
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Tiamkao
authors.forename: Kittisak
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Sawanyawisuth
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D003071:Cognition; D060825:Cognitive Dysfunction; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D003704:Dementia / Q000175:diagnosis*; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D015577:Geriatric Assessment; D005853:Geriatrics / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D012372:ROC Curve; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012720:Severity of Illness Index