Scenery Picture Memory Test: A new type of quick and effective screening test to detect early stage Alzheimer's disease patients

Abstract

It is highly desirable to develop a neuropsychological screening test which is sensitive to the early stage of Alzheimer's disease (AD), and is easy to administer at the primary care physician's (PCP's) office. Participants were 128 AD patients and 54 healthy volunteers. Brief cognitive screening tests were administered to the participants including the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), Clock Drawing Test (CDT), Verbal Fluency Test (VFT), a Verbal Category Cued Memory test (CCMT) and the Scenery Picture Memory Test (SPMT). In the SPMT, a scenery picture of a living room containing 23 familiar objects was used. The administration of the SPMT comprised the first shallow memory session (Pict 1) and the second deep memory session (Pict 2). The area under the receiver-operator curve (AUC) was used to compare the efficacy of SPMT with other cognitive tests. Pict 1, which requires less than 2 min to complete, had the same AUC as Pict 2, and showed significantly larger AUC than MMSE, CDT and VFT for all (MMSE 19-23) and very mild (MMSE > or = 24) AD patients. When we conducted the similar analysis separately for those younger than 75 years and those aged 75 years or older, we obtained the same results as above among the older age group. Pict 1 showed larger AUC than CCMT in overall sample and also in the older age group, although the difference was not statistically significant. The SPMT could be useful for detection of mild and very mild AD in settings even where time is limited.