Diagnostic value of digital clock drawing test in comparison with CERAD neuropsychological battery total score for discrimination of patients in the early course of Alzheimer’s disease from healthy individuals

Abstract

The early detection of cognitive impairment or dementia is in the focus of current research as the amount of cognitively impaired individuals will rise intensely in the next decades due to aging population worldwide. Currently available diagnostic tools to detect mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or dementia are time-consuming, invasive or expensive and not suitable for wide application as required by the high number of people at risk. Thus, a fast, simple and sensitive test is urgently needed to enable an accurate detection of people with cognitive dysfunction and dementia in the earlier stages to initiate specific diagnostic and therapeutic interventions. We examined digital Clock Drawing Test (dCDT) kinematics for their clinical utility in differentiating patients with amnestic MCI (aMCI) or mild Alzheimer’s dementia (mAD) from healthy controls (HCs) and compared it with the diagnostic value of the Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer’s Disease (CERAD) neuropsychological battery total score. Data of 381 participants (138 patients with aMCI, 106 patients with mAD and 137 HCs) was analyzed in the present study. All participants performed the clock drawing test (CDT) on a tablet computer and underwent the CERAD test battery and depression screening. CERAD total scores were calculated by subtest summation, excluding MMSE scores. All tablet variables (i.e. time in air, time on surface, total time, velocity, pressure, pressure/velocity relation, strokes per minute, time not painting, pen-up stroke length, pen-up/pen-down relation, and CDT score) during dCDT performance were entered in a forward stepwise logistic regression model to assess, which parameters best discriminated between aMCI or mAD and HC. Receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curves were constructed to visualize the specificity in relation to the sensitivity of dCDT variables against CERAD total scores in categorizing the diagnostic groups. dCDT variables provided a slightly better diagnostic accuracy of 81.5% for discrimination of aMCI from HCs than using CERAD total score (accuracy 77.5%). In aMCI patients with normal CDT scores, both dCDT (accuracy 78.0%) and CERAD total scores (accuracy 76.0%) were equally accurate in discriminating against HCs. Finally, in differentiating patients with mAD from healthy individuals, accuracy of both dCDT (93.0%) and CERAD total scores (92.3%) was excellent. Our findings suggest that dCDT is a suitable screening tool to identify early cognitive dysfunction. Its performance is comparable with the time-consuming established psychometric measure (CERAD test battery).

Dynamic Handwriting Analysis for Neurodegenerative Disease Assessment: A Literary Review

“…While the traditional CDT revealed only poor sensitivity but excellent specificity in discriminating MCI patients from healthy individuals, excellent sensitivity and a good specificity were obtained in discriminating these groups when considering the digital version of the test. In Reference [106], this research was extended by comparing the digital Clock Drawing Test with the traditional Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer's Disease (CERAD) neuropsychological test score. Digital Clock Drawing Test (dCDT) provided a slightly better diagnostic accuracy for the discrimination of amnestic MCI from controls than using the CERAD score.…”

Use of the Clock Drawing Test and the Rey–Osterrieth Complex Figure Test-copy with convolutional neural networks to predict cognitive impairment

“…The CDT has a variety of scoring systems [ 24 ]. Among them, the Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer’s Disease CDT [ 25 ] is known to be the simplest method with a high diagnostic efficiency [ 26 ].…”

A Comprehensive Evaluation of the Process of Copying a Complex Figure in Early- and Late-Onset Alzheimer Disease: A Quantitative Analysis of Digital Pen Data

“…Recent studies have used a digital device to evaluate the visuoconstructional abilities and executive functions of patients with AD. These researchers used a clock drawing test [ 6 , 7 ] or a 3D house copy test [ 8 ] to quantitatively evaluate cognitive function in patients with AD. It was possible to differentiate patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and AD from NCs by assessing physical parameters such as kinetics (eg, time, velocity) or device-human interaction values (eg, pressure, number/density of strokes).…”