Retention weighted recall improves discrimination of Alzheimer's disease

Herman Buschke, Martin J. Sliwinski, Gail Kuslansky, Mindy Katz, Joe Verghese, Richard B. Lipton

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

23 Scopus citations

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.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)436-440
Number of pages5
JournalJournal of the International Neuropsychological Society
Volume12
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - May 2006

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • General Neuroscience
  • Clinical Psychology
  • Clinical Neurology
  • Psychiatry and Mental health

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