Estimating Premorbid Cognitive Abilities in Low-Educated Populations

Abstract

ObjectiveTo develop an informant-based instrument that would provide a valid estimate of premorbid cognitive abilities in low-educated populations.MethodsA questionnaire was drafted by focusing on the premorbid period with a 10-year time frame. The initial pool of items was submitted to classical test theory and a factorial analysis. The resulting instrument, named the Premorbid Cognitive Abilities Scale (PCAS), is composed of questions addressing educational attainment, major lifetime occupation, reading abilities, reading habits, writing abilities, calculation abilities, use of widely available technology, and the ability to search for specific information. The validation sample was composed of 132 older Brazilian adults from the following three demographically matched groups: normal cognitive aging (n = 72), mild cognitive impairment (n = 33), and mild dementia (n = 27). The scores of a reading test and a neuropsychological battery were adopted as construct criteria. Post-mortem inter-informant reliability was tested in a sub-study with two relatives from each deceased individual.ResultsAll items presented good discriminative power, with corrected item-total correlation varying from 0.35 to 0.74. The summed score of the instrument presented high correlation coefficients with global cognitive function (r = 0.73) and reading skills (r = 0.82). Cronbach's alpha was 0.90, showing optimal internal consistency without redundancy. The scores did not decrease across the progressive levels of cognitive impairment, suggesting that the goal of evaluating the premorbid state was achieved. The intraclass correlation coefficient was 0.96, indicating excellent inter-informant reliability.ConclusionThe instrument developed in this study has shown good properties and can be used as a valid estimate of premorbid cognitive abilities in low-educated populations. The applicability of the PCAS, both as an estimate of premorbid intelligence and cognitive reserve, is discussed.

Estimating Cognitive Reserve in Healthy Adults Using the Cognitive Reserve Scale

“…Thus, there is a need to continue carrying out studies in this vein [45], [47]. The present study follows this line of research.…”

Evaluation and Countermeasures of Green Mine Construction in Yongcheng City Based on DPSIR Model

“…Therefore, according to the principle that variance contribution rate should be higher than 85%, above three principle components could be extracted. [14][15][16]. The variance contribution of the first principal component Y1 was 56.156%, indicating that most indexes of green mine construction of Yongcheng City focused on Y1 ; moreover, index loads of D1 , D2 , P3 , P4 , S3 , S6 and R3 in Y1 were big, which were 0.945, 0.931, 0.952, 0.929, 0.925 and 0.956, respectively, indicating that Y1 could comprehensively reflect the economic benefit, resource utilization and environmental protection, etc.…”

O papel da escolaridade, do alfabetismo funcional e dos fatores sociodemográficos na avaliação cognitiva do idoso

“…(PCAS) foi desenvolvido para avaliar reserva cognitiva e inteligência pré-mórbida (Apolinario et al, 2013b). Trata-se de um questionário aplicado ao informante que registra informações sobre habilidades do período pré-mórbido, especialmente relacionadas a leitura, escrita, cálculo e uso de tecnologia.…”

“…Os escores obtidos a partir dos questionários de reserva cognitiva apresentam boa correlação com medidas de desempenho cognitivo (Schinka et al, 2005;Rami et al, 2011;Nucci et al, 2012;Apolinario et al, 2013b). Sendo geralmente referenciados a períodos pré-mórbidos, apresentam propriedades potencialmente úteis para normatização de testes cognitivos.…”