Construction of a Potential Telephone Assessment of Dementia Prevalence and Severity.

Construction of a Potential Telephone Assessment of Dementia Prevalence and Severity. J Neuropsychiatry Clin Neurosci. 2018 Feb 20;:appineuropsych17060110 Authors: Royall DR, Palmer RF Abstract The "δ" (for "dementia") is a latent dementia phenotype that can be constructed by a unique confirmatory bifactor model in a structural equation model framework. Because it is derived from Spearman's general intelligence factor, "g," δ can be constructed from any cognitive battery. This may allow for accurate dementia case-finding by telephone and in the absence of expert clinical evaluation or review. The authors constructed a new δ homolog in a large ethnically diverse convenience sample: the Texas Alzheimer's Research and Care Consortium, comprising 2,016 participants (Alzheimer's disease [AD], N=920; mild cognitive impairment, N=277; normal controls, N=819). A δ composite ("dTEL") was extracted from informant-rated Instrumental Activities of Daily Living and a brief battery of verbal cognitive measures. The entire battery was engineered to be administered over the telephone. dTEL's model had excellent fit. dTEL correlated strongly with dementia severity, as measured by the Clinical Dementia Rating "sum of boxes" scale (r=0.78, p<0.001). The dTEL composite's area under the receiver operating characteristic curve for the discrimination between control subjects and AD patients was 0.97 (95% CI=0.964-0.975). This was superior to all dTE...
Source: Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences - Category: Psychiatry Tags: J Neuropsychiatry Clin Neurosci Source Type: research