The Alzheimer's Questionnaire: A Proof of Concept Study for a New Informant-Based Dementia Assessment

Abstract

The aim of this pilot study is to determine the feasibility and clinical utility of a brief, informant-based screening questionnaire for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) that can be administered in a primary care setting. The Alzheimer’s Questionnaire (AQ) was administered to the informants of 188 patients in 3 dementia clinics (50 cognitively normal, 69 mild cognitive impairment (MCI), 69 AD). Total score for the AQ is based upon the sum of clinical symptom items in which the informant responds as being present. Clinical symptoms which are known to be highly predictive of the clinical AD diagnosis are given greater weight in the total AQ score. The mean time of administration of the AQ was 2.6 ± 0.6 minutes. Sensitivity and specificity were found to be high for detecting both AD (98.55, 96.00) and MCI (86.96, 94.00) with ROC curves yielding AUC values of 0.99 and 0.95, respectively. This pilot study indicates that the AQ is a brief, sensitive measure for detecting both MCI and AD and could be easily implemented in a primary care setting.

The Alzheimer’s Disease Assessment Scale-Cognitive-Plus (ADAS-Cog-Plus): an expansion of the ADAS-Cog to improve responsiveness in MCI

“…A study of one measure, the Functional Activities Questionnaire (FAQ), (Pfeffer et al 1982) found functional deficits in 72 % of amnestic MCI individuals, suggesting that these deficits may have utility in the detection of early cognitive decline (Brown et al 2011). These findings, along with evidence from other studies, suggest that informant-based questionnaires may also have utility in detecting cognitive and functional changes in MCI populations (Sabbagh et al 2010). …”

“…Several studies have documented the utility of informant reports of functional status in dementia assessments (Butt 2008; Sabbagh et al 2010). For example Mackinnon and colleagues (2003) examined whether dementia screening sensitivity improved with an augmented measure of the MMSE and the Informant Questionnaire for Cognitive Decline in the Elderly (IQCODE) in comparison to either item alone.…”

P3‐261: Concurrent validity of the Alzheimer's Questionnaire (AQ)

“…As an informant-based instrument for assessing cognitive decline, the AQ has shown that it can accurately differentiate both aMCI and AD when compared to cognitively normal individuals [11,12]. The pilot study of the AQ [11] yielded very favorable diagnostic ability for both aMCI (AUC = 0.95) and AD (AUC = 0.99). These results were replicated in a larger sample of aMCI, AD, and cognitively normal individuals [12].…”

“…The initial pilot study of the AQ [11] found that the instrument has excellent sensitivity (87%) and specificity (94%) for aMCI and AD (sensitivity = 99%, specificity = 96%). The AQ also demonstrated good internal consistency (Cronbach’s α = 0.88).…”

Development and Evaluation of an Android-based Platform for Early MCI Detection in an Elderly Population

“…Performing Cognitive impairment Test: This section comprised demographic information such as birth date, handedness, cigarette and alcohol use, physical activity, history of illnesses and drug use, family history of AD and MCI assessment. The assessment module for MCI was based on the Alzheimer's Dementia Questionnaire (21) which was validated with the reliability of its paper-based format assessed in the previous study. This app is designed for both selfassessment and other-evaluation purposes so that people can assess themselves if they are able to do the test; otherwise, each family member could complete the test for the individual.…”