Application of AD8 Questionnaire to Screen Very Mild Dementia in Taiwanese

Abstract

The AD8 questionnaire developed by Washington University in St Louis is a screening tool with 8 questions to reliably differentiate nondemented from demented individuals even at the very mild stage. We recruited 239 participants, including 114 cognitively normal, 73 very mild dementia, and 52 mild dementia to validate its application in Taiwanese. The cut-off value of AD8 was 2 in discriminating cognitively normal from demented individuals with the area under curve (AUC) = 0.961, sensitivity = 97.6%, specificity = 78.1%, positive likelihood ratio (PLR) = 4.5, and negative likelihood ratio (NLR) = 0.03. The cut-off value also was 2 in discriminating nondemented from very mild dementia with the AUC = 0.948, sensitivity = 95.9%, specificity = 78.1%, PLR = 4.4, and NLR = 0.05. The Chinese AD8 is effective in discriminating individuals with dementia, even at its mildest stages from those without dementia with properties identical to the original English version. The cAD8 is a quick dementia screening tool that can be applied across cultures.

Dementia in Taiwan area

“…The clinical dementia rating (CDR) scale is also used not only for staging but also for diagnosis [12] . The AD8 is used extensively as a screening tool because of its capability in screening VMD [13] .…”

“…For moderately severe AD (MMSE [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14], the use of memantine can improve global performance, cognitive function, activities of daily living, and behavior (class I, evidence A). Combination therapy with donepezil is superior to donepezil monotherapy (class I, evidence B).…”

Accelerometer-assessed light physical activity is protective of future cognitive ability: A longitudinal study among community dwelling older adults

“…The Chinese version of the AD8 has demonstrated adequate reliability and validity among community-dwelling older Taiwanese adults (Yang et al 2011). Within the current study, the Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficients for the AD8 ranged between 0.79 (first-wave) and 0.81 (second-wave) across the two waves of data collection.…”

The reliability and validity of the informant AD8 by comparison with a series of cognitive assessment tools in primary healthcare

“…In addition to good reliability, the informant AD8 also demonstrated good concurrent validity evidenced by strong correlations with performancebased cognitive screening assessments such as the MMSE and MoCA; clinical assessments such as the CDR; and formal neuropsychological assessments (Galvin et al, 2006;Ryu et al, 2009;Koski et al, 2010;Correia et al, 2011;Yang et al, 2011). In regards to construct validity, individual items of the informant AD8 were reported to correlate well with cognitive domains of memory (daily problems with memory, repeating statements, trouble remembering appointments), orientation (trouble remembering month or year), executive abilities (problems with judgment, trouble handling finances), and complex function (loss of interest, trouble learning new appliances) (Correia et al, 2011).…”