The short cognitive evaluation battery in cognitive disorders of the elderly--Italian version.
OBJECTIVE
To validate the Italian version of the Short Cognitive Evaluation Battery (SCEB), consisting of 4 tests (temporal orientation, five words, clock drawing and verbal fluency) in healthy controls (CONT), patients with mild Alzheimer's disease (AD), mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and major depressive disorder (DEP).


METHODS
Twenty-nine AD patients (mean Mini-Mental State Examination, MMSE, score: 22.1 ± 3.1), 27 MCI patients (mean MMSE score: 26.5 ± 2.0), 27 depressed patients (mean MMSE score: 26.9 ± 2.8), and 48 controls (mean MMSE score: 29.7 ± 0.5) were enrolled.


RESULTS
MANCOVA showed highly significant (p < 0.0001) difference among groups. As for total SCEB score, AD were separated from CONT with high accuracy (93%; with sensitivity 93%, specificity 92%, area under ROC curve, AUC, 0.96) and from DEP with satisfying accuracy (84%; with sensitivity 76%, specificity 93%, AUC 0.84). Results in MCI versus CONT comparison yielded more moderate accuracy (80%; with sensitivity 70%, specificity 87%, AUC 0.80), which increased in the subgroup of MCI patients who later converted to AD (85%; with sensitivity 75%, specificity 83%, AUC 0.86). The direct comparison between MCI converters and nonconverters did not yield accurate results.


CONCLUSIONS
The Italian version of the SCEB is a short (between 6 min in CONT and 12 min in DEP) screening tool in cognitive disorders of the elderly, and is potentially useful in clinical practice.
Clinical Neurophysiology, Department of Neuroscience, Ophthalmology and Genetics, IRCCS San Martino-IST University Hospital, University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy. nicolagirtler@unige.it
Nicola
N
Girtler
Andrea
A
Brugnolo
Claudio
C
Campus
Fabrizio
F
De Carli
Francesco
F
Famà
Lucio
L
Ghio
Philippe
P
Robert
Maria Paola
MP
Barbieri
Marta
M
Delmonte
Stefano
S
Venuti
Filippo
F
Gabrielli
Guido
G
Rodriguez
Flavio
F
Nobili
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D019540:Area Under Curve; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology*; D060825:Cognitive Dysfunction / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology; D003865:Major Depressive Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy; D007802:Language; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D012372:ROC Curve; D015203:Reproducibility of Results