Predicting dementia using socio-demographic characteristics and the Free and Cued Selective Reminding Test in the general population

Alzheimers Res Ther. 2017 Mar 23;9(1):21. doi: 10.1186/s13195-016-0230-x.

Abstract

Background: Our study aimed to determine whether the consideration of socio-demographic features improves the prediction of Alzheimer's dementia (AD) at 5 years when using the Free and Cued Selective Reminding Test (FCSRT) in the general older population.

Methods: Our analyses focused on 2558 subjects from the prospective Three-City Study, a cohort of community-dwelling individuals aged 65 years and over, with FCSRT scores. Four "residual scores" and "risk scores" were built that included the FCSRT scores and socio-demographic variables. The predictive performance of crude, residual and risk scores was analyzed by comparing the areas under the ROC curve (AUC).

Results: In total, 1750 subjects were seen 5 years after completing the FCSRT. AD was diagnosed in 116 of them. Compared with the crude free-recall score, the predictive performances of the residual score and of the risk score were not significantly improved (AUC: 0.83 vs 0.82 and 0.88 vs 0.89 respectively).

Conclusion: Using socio-demographic features in addition to the FCSRT does not improve its predictive performance for dementia or AD.

Keywords: Alzheimer disease; Dementia; Early clinical trial; Prediction; preclinical Alzheimer disease; prodromal Alzheimer disease.

Publication types

  • Evaluation Study

MeSH terms

  • Age Distribution
  • Aged
  • Aged, 80 and over
  • Causality
  • Comorbidity
  • Cues
  • Dementia / diagnosis*
  • Dementia / epidemiology*
  • Educational Status
  • Female
  • France / epidemiology
  • Humans
  • Longitudinal Studies
  • Male
  • Memory Disorders / diagnosis*
  • Memory Disorders / epidemiology*
  • Mental Status and Dementia Tests*
  • Prevalence
  • Prognosis
  • Proportional Hazards Models*
  • Reproducibility of Results
  • Risk Assessment
  • Sensitivity and Specificity
  • Sex Distribution
  • Socioeconomic Factors