Use of the Arizona Battery for Communication Disorders of Dementia in an Australian context

Abstract

The Arizona Battery for Communication Disorders of Dementia (ABCD) (Bayles and Tomoeda, 1993) was administered to 20 normal elderly control participants and 20 participants with the diagnosis of probable Alzheimer's Disease (AD). Eleven of the participants with probable AD were described as having a mild dementia and nine as having a moderate dementia according to the Global Deterioration Scale (Reisberg et al., 1982). Minor cultural modifications were made to the ABCD prior to use in the Australian context. Although the normal old participants in the original US standardization sample had significantly more years of education than the Australian normal old control group, there were no significant mean score differences between the control groups on any of the subtests of the ABCD. Comparison across participants in the AD groups revealed that the mean score for Australian participants with mild AD was significantly lower than that of the mild AD participants from the USA on only one subtest, Reading Comprehension – Sentences. None of the comparisons between the Australian and American participants with moderate AD revealed significant differences. Within the Australian data, comparison of the mean scores for the normal elderly control group and the two AD groups (mild and moderate) provided support for the sensitivity of the ABCD in differentiating normal versus dementia-related performance. The mild AD group had significantly lower mean scores than the normal control group on all but three of the subtests. Only one sub test did not differentiate the moderate AD group from the normal elderly group. Our findings support the cultural robustness of the ABCD. Further, it is clear that the source standardization data can be employed in the Australian context even when the level of education completed by the elderly population is significantly lower than that of the participants in the original US study.