Clinical Manifestations.

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Psychology
• Cross-cultural research

Background:

• Alzheimer's disease dementia (ADD) diagnosis relies on cognitive decline, but current assessments lack precision and are culturally influenced.
• Clinical judgment is vital when biomarkers are unavailable or conflict with clinical findings.
• Cross-cultural harmonization of diagnostic tools is necessary for global accuracy.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the cross-cultural validity of the Visual Short-Term Memory Binding Test (VSTMBT) and other cognitive assessments in Latin America.
• To determine if these tests can reliably detect Alzheimer's disease dementia (ADD) across diverse cultural contexts.

Main Methods:

• Recruited 426 ADD patients and 869 healthy controls from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru.
• Administered a comprehensive protocol including the VSTMBT, Craft Story 21 Test (CS21T), and Benson Complex Figure Test (CBFT).
• Employed General Linear Models (GLM) and Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) analysis to assess group differences and classification accuracy, controlling for confounders.

Main Results:

• The VSTMBT showed significant deficits in ADD patients, particularly in shape-color binding.
• All three tests (VSTMBT, CS21T, CBFT) revealed significant cognitive deficits in ADD individuals compared to healthy controls across countries.
• A composite score combining the three tests demonstrated high classification accuracy (AUC > 0.78) for ADD detection across the studied Latin American countries.

Conclusions:

• The VSTMBT, CS21T, and CBFT are reliable tools for assessing ADD across diverse Latin American populations.
• Despite observed variability, these tests consistently identified significant ADD-related deficits, independent of confounding factors.
• The findings support the cross-cultural validity of the VSTMBT in Latin America, extending previous findings from European countries.