A brief cognitive screening battery for dementia in the community

Screening community samples for dementia often necessitates administering a cognitive test battery by trained personnel. Because diagnostic examinations are expensive, a useful screening battery must be highly specific in addition to having high sensitivity. The Monogahela Valley Independent Elders Survey (MoVIES) includes a random sample of community-dwelling participants at least 65 years of age who were screened using an extensive test battery of cognitive tests that required over 30 min to administer. Classification and Regression Trees (CART) was used to identify a subset of the battery that could be administered quickly and which maintained high levels of sensitivity and specificity for a diagnosis of dementia. The Short and Sweet Screening Instrument (SASSI) is a brief battery consisting of three standard cognitive tests that can be administered in approximately 10 min. Compared to the full battery, it was more sensitive (94% vs. 90%) and had comparable specificity (91% vs. 92%) for dementia in this sample.