Abstract
Background
The Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR) scale is widely used as a cognitive and functional measure in Alzheimer's disease (AD) clinical trials. Given its time and personnel burden, there is a need to more efficiently identify patients who warrant further evaluation or clinical trial qualification. To potentially address this need, a novel performance-based test of cognition and daily functioning has been developed for use in AD research and clinical care.
Objective
To test whether this novel performance-based test is associated with levels of daily functioning in both impaired and unimpaired individuals.
Methods
One-hundred-seventy-one participants (72 cognitively unimpaired; 53 amnestic mild cognitive impairment; 46 mild AD) completed the novel performance-based test of cognition and daily functioning, as well as the Quick Dementia Rating System (QDRS) for estimating global CDR.
Results
The novel test was significantly associated with the QDRS Total, as well as the Behavioral and Cognitive subdomains, and differentiated between estimated global CDR scores of 0 versus ≥0.5. No significant effect of age, sex, or education on the performance-based test was observed.
Conclusions
The performance-based test used in this study can be considered a measure of cognition and daily functioning. As such, it may be a quick, objective method for identifying impaired individuals who may qualify for clinical trial enrollment or may warrant further evaluation without the need for informant input.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
