Validity of the Mini-Mental State Examination-2 in Diagnosing Mild Cognitive Impairment and Dementia in Patients Visiting an Outpatient Clinic in the Netherlands.

This study examined the utility of the recently published MMSE-2:SV in detecting cognitive impairment. We used receiver operating characteristics to test the discriminative power of the MMSE-2:SV for distinguishing between older adults without mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or dementia (n=67) and patients with MCI (n=76) or dementia (n=79). The results show that the MMSE-2:SV had excellent discriminative ability in distinguishing older controls from patients with dementia, with cut-off scores of 26 and 27 (max=30) yielding appropriate sensitivity (0.810 and 0.924, respectively) and specificity (0.940 and 0.806). Discriminative power was close to good in distinguishing between older controls and patients with MCI. Here, however, no optimal cut-off point could be determined. Even though this study shows good sensitivity and adequate specificity for the MMSE-2:SV in discriminating individuals without MCI or dementia from those with dementia, its validity is limited for identifying patients with MCI.

Pilot study of a three-step diagnostic pathway for young and old patients with Parkinson's disease dementia: screen, test and then diagnose.

OBJECTIVE: To pilot a three-step diagnostic model for young and old patients with Parkinson's disease dementia (PDD). METHODS: Prospective investigator-blinded study. We developed a screening questionnaire for patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) and their caregivers. Further, patients were subjected to three screening instruments (Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), Frontal Assessment Battery (FAB), Addenbrooke's Cognitive Examination-revised (ACE-R) and a detailed neuropsychological examination (NPE). Based on the NPE, patients were divided in a PD (without dementia) and a PDD-group. RESULTS: Forty-one PD patients, aged 37-94 years, participated in this study. Patients were divided in a young group, < or = 65 (n = 22) and an old group >65 years (n = 19). In the young group (PDD, n = 5) the patient-screening questionnaire predicted PDD with a sensitivity/specificity of 100.0%/94.1%; in the old group (PDD, n = 10) the proxy-screening questionnaire predicted PDD with a sensitivity/specificity of 88.9%/66.7%. In the young group, ACE-R had the largest Area Under the Curve (AUC) 0.88 (0.70-1.00), in the old group MoCA (AUC 1.00). However, the three instruments did not differ significantly. CONCLUSIONS: It seems feasible and efficient to use three consecutive diagnostic steps for PDD: (1) a screening questionnaire, (2) if positive: MoCA, FAB or ACE-R as screening instrument and (3) if positive: a detailed NPE for diagnosing PDD.

Semantic priming effects in normal versus poor readers.

The authors studied sensitivity to semantic priming, as distinct from semantic judgment, in poor readers. Association strength (high vs. low semantic association) was manipulated factorially with semantic association type (categoric vs. thematic association). Participants were 11-year-old poor readers (n = 15) who were matched with a group of chronological-age controls (n = 13), and also matched with a group of reading-age controls (n = 15). Three priming conditions were used: related, unrelated, and neutral prime. Neutral primes consisted of a row of hash marks. Related primes elicited shorter decision latencies than did unrelated primes. Neutral primes elicited the slowest responses in all groups. Poor readers showed an additional delay in the neutral prime condition. No effects of association type (categorical vs. thematic) or association strength (high vs. low) were found, nor were any relationship with reading ability found. The delayed performance of the poor readers on neutral primes is explained in terms of orthographic processing and dependency on grapheme phoneme relationships. The findings are discussed with reference to F. R. Vellutino, D. M. Scanlon, and D. Spearing's (1995) work on semantic processing and reading ability.