Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-nwzlb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-19T09:51:28.267Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Retention weighted recall improves discrimination of Alzheimer's disease

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2006

HERMAN BUSCHKE
Affiliation:
Department of Neurology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York Rose F. Kennedy Center for Mental Retardation and Human Development, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York
MARTIN J. SLIWINSKI
Affiliation:
Department of Neurology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York Rose F. Kennedy Center for Mental Retardation and Human Development, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York Department of Psychology, Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York
GAIL KUSLANSKY
Affiliation:
Department of Neurology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York Rose F. Kennedy Center for Mental Retardation and Human Development, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York
MINDY KATZ
Affiliation:
Department of Neurology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York
JOE VERGHESE
Affiliation:
Department of Neurology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York
RICHARD B. LIPTON
Affiliation:
Department of Neurology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York Department of Epidemiology and Social Medicine, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York

Abstract

Impaired recall for early items (primacy) and late items (recency) on word list recall tests are seen in Alzheimer's disease (AD). We compared conventional scoring on the Telephone Instrument for Cognitive Status (TICS) recall list with scorings based on retention-weighted recall (RWR: each item weighted by its serial position) in older adults participating in a community-based aging study. Subjects with mild AD (N = 18) did not differ from those without dementia (N = 231) with respect to recency (46% vs. 59%, p = 0.2), but had impaired primacy (2% vs. 39%, p < .001) on word recall on the TICS. RWR scoring improved the effect size (1.52 SD) compared to conventional scoring (1.08 SD). With a fixed sensitivity of 85%, specificity was lower using conventional scoring (56%) than RWR (76%) scoring. Our findings suggest that optimized RWR scoring of word list free recall can improve detection of mild AD compared to conventional scoring. (JINS, 2006, 12, 436–440.)

Type
BRIEF COMMUNICATION
Copyright
© 2006 The International Neuropsychological Society

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

American Psychiatric Association (1994). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders–Revised (3rd edition). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.
Baddeley, A.D., Baddeley, H.A., Bucks, R.S., & Wilcock, G.K. (2001). Attentional control in Alzheimer's disease. Brain, 124, 14921508.Google Scholar
Blessed, G., Tomlinson, R., & Roth, M. (1968). The association between quantitative measures of dementia and of senile changes in the cerebral gray matter of elderly subjects. British Journal of Psychiatry, 114, 797811.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brandt, J., Spencer, M., & Folstein, M. (1988). The Telephone Interview for Cognitive Status. Neuropsychiatry, Neuropsychology, and Behavioral Neurology, 1, 111117.Google Scholar
Buschke, H. (1984). Cued recall in amnesia. Journal of Clinical Neuropsychology, 6, 433440.Google Scholar
Buschke, H., Sliwinski, M.J., Kuslansky, G., & Lipton, R.B. (1997). Diagnosis of early dementia by the Double Memory Test: Encoding specificity improves diagnostic sensitivity and specificity. Neurology, 48, 989997.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buschke, H. & Sliwinski, M.J. (1999). Item-Specific Weighted Memory Measurement. In E. Tulving (Ed.), Memory, Consciousness, and the Brain: The Tallinn Conference (pp. 1827). Philadelphia: The Psychology Press.
Callahan, C.M., Hendrie, H.C., & Tierney, W.M. (1995). Documentation and evaluation of cognitive impairment in elderly primary care patients. Annals of Internal Medicine, 122, 422429.Google Scholar
DeLong, E.R., DeLong, D.M., & Clarke-Pearson, D.L. (1988). Comparing the areas under two or more correlated receiver operating characteristic curves: A nonparametric approach. Biometrics, 44, 837845.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gainotti, G. & Marra, C. (1994). Some aspects of memory disorders clearly distinguish dementia of the Alzheimer's type from depressive pseudo-dementia. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 16, 6578.Google Scholar
Gainotti, G., Monteleone, D., Parlato, E., & Carlomagno, S. (1989). Verbal memory disorders in Alzheimer's disease and multi-infarct dementia. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 4, 327345.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Howard, M.W. & Kahana, M.J. (1999). Contextual variability and serial position effects in free recall. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory & Cognition, 25, 923941.Google Scholar
Hughes, C.P., Berg, L., Danziger, W.L., Coben, L.A., & Martin, R.L. (1982). A new clinical scale for the staging of dementia. British Journal of Psychiatry, 140, 566572.Google Scholar
Lipton, R.B., Katz, M.J., Kuslansky, G., Sliwinski, M., Stewart, W.F., Verghese, J., Crystal, H., & Buschke, H. (2003). Screening for dementia by telephone using the memory impairment screen. Journal of the American Geriatric Society, 51, 13821390.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Masur, D., Sliwinski, M., Lipton, R.B., Blau, A.D., & Crystal, H.A. (1994). Neuropsychological prediction of dementia and the absence of dementia in healthy elderly persons. Neurology, 44, 14271432.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McKhann, G., Drachman, D., Folstein, M., Katzman, R., Price, D., & Stadlan, E. (1984). Clinical diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease: Report of the NINCDS-ADRDA Work Group under the auspices of Department of Health and Human Services Task Force on Alzheimer's Disease. Neurology, 34, 939944.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meiran, N., Stuss, D.T., Guzman, D.A., Lafleche, G., & Willmer, J. (1996). Diagnosis of dementia. Methods for interpretation of scores of 5 neuropsychological tests. Archives of Neurology, 53, 10431054.Google Scholar
Murdock, B.B. (1962). The serial position effect of free recall. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 64, 482488.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nipher, F.E. (1878). On the distribution of errors of numbers written from memory. Transactions of the Academy of Science of St. Louis, 3, 210211.Google Scholar
Shankle, W.R., Romney, A.K., Hara, J., Fortier, D., Dick, M.B., Chen, J.M., Chan, T., & Sun, X. (2005). Methods to improve the detection of mild cognitive impairment. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 102, 49194924.Google Scholar
Sliwinski, M., Buschke, H., Stewart, W.F., Masur, D., & Lipton, R.B. (1997). The effect of dementia risk factors on comparative and diagnostic selective reminding norms. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 3, 317326.Google Scholar
Spinnler, H. & Della Sala, S. (1988). The role of clinical neuropsychology in the neurological diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease. Journal of Neurology, 235, 258271.Google Scholar
Wechsler, D. (1981). Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale–Revised. New York: Psychological Corporation.