Clinical Utility of Two- and Three-Dimensional Visuoconstructional Tasks in Mild Cognitive Impairment and Early Alzheimer's Disease.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to investigate whether different types of visuoconstructional abilities are useful to distinguish individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) from healthy controls (HCs). METHOD: We selected 20 patients with MCI and 14 with AD diagnosis based on standard criteria. The neuropsychological performance of MCI and AD groups were compared with that of a group of 11 HCs using a standard neuropsychological battery and visuoconstructional tasks that differed difficulty and type of implicated skills (graphomotor vs. non-graphomotor): two-dimensional (Clock Drawing Test, CDT; Block Design, BD; and Visual Puzzles, VP) and three-dimensional Block Construction (TBC). RESULTS: AD group scored significantly lower than HCs in BD, VP and TBC tasks, but no significant differences were found between HCs and MCI. CDT (copy condition) scores did not differ significantly among the groups. The receiver operating characteristic analysis showed that BD [sensitivity (se) = .85, specificity (sp) = .90, Youden index (J) = .76], VP (se = .78 and sp = .72, J = .51) and TBC (se = .71, sp = 100, J = .71) were accurate tasks to discriminate between AD and HCs. Moreover, BD tasks (se = .85, sp = .70, J = .55) and TBC (se = .71, sp = .80, J = .51) showed fair accuracy to differentiate between MCI and AD groups. CONCLUSIONS: These findings indicate that non-graphomotor visuoconstructional tasks are already impaired in the early stages of AD, but are preserved in MCI individuals when compared with HCs.

Cross-cultural adaptation and psychometric properties of the Brazilian Portuguese version of successful aging scale in community-dwelling older adults.

There is a growing consensus regarding the multidimensional nature of successful aging (SA), including both the biomedical and psychosocial domains of the aging process. The Successful Aging Scale (SAS) is a self-rated instrument addressing both of these components. The aim of this study was to analyze the psychometric properties of the Brazilian Portuguese version of the SAS (SAS-B) with regard to reliability and validity in 949 Brazilian community-dwelling older adults (53.60% women; M = 69.49 years; standard deviation = 7.67). Confirmatory factorial analysis (CFA) was performed to provide evidence on its structural validity. Convergent and divergent validity was studied by means of examining the relationships of SAS-B with scales concerning resilience, life satisfaction, self-esteem, social support, perceived stress, and health, as well as mental health. The CFA showed that the SAS-B is multidimensional with three correlated factors (χ2 /df = 2.74; standardized root mean square residual = 0.03; root mean square error approximation = 0.04; comparative fit index = 0.91), and its factors showed adequate reliability (ω = 0.70 for Healthy living habits, ω = 0.69 for Adaptive coping, and ω = 0.70 for Engagement with Life). Convergent and divergent validity was endorsed by correlations with related factors. The SAS-B is a reliable and valid self-rated instrument to measure the SA from a multidimensional perspective.