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Retention weighted recall improves discrimination of Alzheimer's disease

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2006

HERMAN BUSCHKE ,
MARTIN J. SLIWINSKI ,
GAIL KUSLANSKY ,
MINDY KATZ ,
JOE VERGHESE  and
RICHARD B. LIPTON
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
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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.)

Keywords

DementiaMemorySerial PositionPrimacyRecencyAging
Type
BRIEF COMMUNICATION
Information
Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society , Volume 12 , Issue 3 , May 2006 , pp. 436 - 440
Copyright
© 2006 The International Neuropsychological Society

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