Affiliations: [a] Department of Neuroscience, Behaviour and Psychology, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK
| [b] Newcastle Integrated Liaison Psychiatry Team, Royal Victoria Hospital, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
| [c] Northumberland Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
| [d] The Evington Centre, Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust, Leicester, UK
Correspondence:
[*]
Correspondence to: John Maltby, PhD and Elizabeta B. Mukaetova-Ladinska, MD, PhD, MRCPsych, Department of
Neuroscience, Behaviour and Psychology, University of Leicester, Leicester LE1 7AP, UK.
E-mail: jm148@le.ac.uk. (J.M.), E-mail: eml12@le.ac.uk. (E.B.M.).
Abstract: Background:The Salzburg Dementia Test Prediction (SDTP), developed using artificial intelligence and based on the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), was recently introduced as a brief cognitive screening tool for cognitive impairment. Objective:In the current study, we investigated whether the STDP can be used as a valid bed-side cognitive screening tool for dementia patients, in an English-speaking, medical inpatient setting. Methods:216 medically ill older patients who had completed the MMSE (from which the SDTP scores can be calculated), with a subsample 58 patients who had also completed the ACE-R/ACE-III scales. Diagnosis of one of four dementia types (n = 127) and socio-demographic information were also collected. MMSE, SDTP, ACE-R/ACE-III, and dementia diagnosis were used to examine the construct validity of the SDTP through assessments of the structural, concurrent, and convergent validity. Results:The SDTP shows structural validity through demonstrating uni-dimensionality. Construct validity was demonstrated by sufficient correlation sizes with MMSE scores against a benchmark correlation size for most of the subsample, except vascular dementia. Convergent validity was demonstrated for the STDP with equivalent correlations sizes with ACE-R/ACE-III as the MMSE across all samples, though for vascular dementia the magnitude of this correlation was not as strong. Conclusions:Our findings support using STDP as a brief assessment tool among patients who have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, Lewy body disease, and mixed dementia; however, there is some statistical variability to overall MMSE scores and correlations with the ACE-R/ACE-III among patients diagnosed with vascular dementia.
Keywords: Cognitive test, dementia, medically ill, Mini-Mental State Examination, older people, Salzburg Dementia Test Prediction
