Improving sensitivity of the recognition task in the Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale

This paper presents an alternative measure for scoring the recognition memory task in the Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale (ADAS), which is one of the most common screening tests. Memory studies routinely take into account not only correct responses to old items (Hits) but also incorrect responses to new items (False Alarms). Here, a bias-corrected measure of recognition memory, Hits minus False Alarms (called Pr), is computed and its significance evaluated against the original measure, Hits. 28 male and 40 female healthy elderly people (M age= 68.5 yr., SD=3.5) recruited from the neighborhood community participated in this study. Multiple stepwise regression analyses first with Hit Rate then False Alarm Rate showed that False Alarm Rate significantly improved R(2) in the two subscale scores of the Wechsler Memory Scale-Revised and scores of the Mini-Mental State Exam. Thus, this new measure taking into account false responses may be more sensitive and useful to detect early stages of cognitive dysfunction.