NEUROPSI battery subtest profile in subcortical vascular dementia and Alzheimer's disease.

Maria Niures P.S Matioli,Paulo Caramelli

doi:10.1590/s1980-57642012dn06030010

Abstract

ObjectiveTo investigate the diagnostic value of subtests of the NEUROPSI battery for differentiating subcortical vascular dementia (SVaD) from Alzheimer's disease (AD).MethodsThirteen patients with mild SVaD, 15 patients with mild probable AD, and 30 healthy controls, matched for age, education and dementia severity (in the case of patients), were submitted to the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and NEUROPSI battery. The performance of AD and SVaD groups on NEUROPSI subtests was compared. The statistical analyses were performed using Kruskal-Wallis, Chi-square and Mann-Whitney tests. The results were interpreted at the 5% significance level (p<0.05). Bonferroni's correction was applied to multiple comparisons (α=0.02).ResultsSVaD and AD patients showed no statistical difference in MMSE scores (SVaD=20.8 and AD=21.0; p=1.0) or in NEUROPSI total score (SVaD=65.0 and AD=64.3; p=0.56), suggesting a similar severity of dementia. The AD group performed worse on memory recall (<0.01) and SVaD group was worse in verbal fluency subtests (p=0.02).ConclusionNEUROPSI's memory and language subtests can be an auxiliary tool for differentiating SVaD from AD.

Highlights

In a report issued in 2012, the World Health Organization estimates there were 35.6 million people living with dementia worldwide in 2010 and that this number will increase to 65.7 million by 2030, with two-thirds of cases living in low and middle-income countries, including Brazil and other Latin American countries.[1]
We studied 58 individuals, aged 50 years or older, who were patients and healthy volunteers from two teaching hospitals, the Geriatric Outpatient Clinic of Guilherme Álvaro Hospital in Santos and the Cognitive Neurology Outpatient Clinic from the Hospital das Clínicas of the University of São Paulo School of Medicine in São Paulo, Brazil
Verbal memory tasks consist of a series of 6 words read aloud, which subjects are asked to repeat; three trials are included after 20 minutes the six words are recalled, a number of clues are provided to increase recall according to the semantic content of the word, and word recognition is required

Summary

Introduction

In a report issued in 2012, the World Health Organization estimates there were 35.6 million people living with dementia worldwide in 2010 and that this number will increase to 65.7 million by 2030, with two-thirds of cases living in low and middle-income countries, including Brazil and other Latin American countries.[1]. The NEUROPSI is a brief neuropsychological battery developed to assess a wide spectrum of cognitive functions, namely, orientation, attention and concentration, memory, language, reading and writing, visuoperceptual abilities and executive functions.[9] This battery was developed especially for use in Latin American people to enable neuropsychological evaluation adapted to the social and cultural characteristics of this population.[9] The NEUROPSI battery was standardized for Spanish speaking Latin America in Mexico[9] and translated into Portuguese for use in Brazil by Abrisqueta-Gómez et al.[10]

Results

Conclusion