Influence of socio-demographic characteristics on DRS-2 performance in Spanish-speaking older adults

The present study compared the performance of English- and Spanish-speaking healthy controls (HCs) on the Spanish translation of the Dementia Rating Scale-Second edition (ST-DRS-2) and examined the classification accuracy of the ST-DRS-2 and Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) with an age- and education-matched clinical sample. In contrast to previous findings with English-speakers, a stronger relationship was observed between ST-DRS-2 Total scores and education than with age, and despite being matched on both of these variables, English-speaking HCs significantly out-performed their Spanish-speaking counterparts on the ST-DRS-2. The greatest between-group difference was found on the Memory subscale, wherein the majority of errors committed by Spanish-speaking HCs were significantly related to level of acculturation. ST-DRS-2 Total and Memory subscale scores produced greater classification accuracy than the MMSE; however, ST-DRS-2 Total scores yielded the greatest corresponding rates of sensitivity and specificity. Normative data are provided and recommended to improve the ST-DRS-2's diagnostic accuracy with Spanish-speakers.