Discrimination between senile dementia Alzheimer type patients and -education matched normal controls by means of a...

Discrimination between senile dementia Alzheimer type (SDAT) patients (N = 30) and Normal Controls (N = 60) by means of a 6-test set was assessed. Performances on Word Fluency (FL), Memory for Prose (PM) and Finger Agnosia (FA) nearly exhaust the discriminant power of the whole battery, including Constructional Apraxia (CA), Token Test (TT) and Weigl's Sorting Test (WT). The battery, however, leaves some facets of the difference between SDAT patients and Controls unexplored, misclassifying almost 20% of the SDAT patients and 10% of the Controls. We emphasize the role of discriminant analysis in the evaluation of any neuropsychological battery of tests which has to be used for diagnostic purposes.