Validity of the Cambridge Cognitive Examination-Revised New Executive Function Scores in the Diagnosis of Dementia: Some Early Findings

Abstract

The Cambridge Cognitive Examination-Revised introduces 2 new executive items (Ideational Fluency and Visual Reasoning), which separately or combined with 2 executive items in the former version (word list generation and similarities) might constitute an Executive Function Score (EFS). The authors studied the validity of these new EFSs in 51 demented (dementia of the Alzheimer’s type, vascular dementia) and nondemented individuals (depressives and normals). The new EFSs were found valid to accurately differentiate between demented and nondemented subjects; however, they were considerably less so when specific diagnoses were considered. Correlations between the variously combined executive scores and the cognitive scales and subscales studied were prevalently low to moderate, and ranged from high and significant to low and nonsignificant when the 4 executive items were correlated to each other. The ability of the executive scores to discriminate demented from nondemented individuals was lower compared with the Cambridge Cognitive Examination-Revised scores. EFS was found internally consistent.