The relationship between neuropsychological performance and daily functioning in individuals with Alzheimer's disease: ecological validity of neuropsychological tests

Abstract

The current study examined the relationship between neuropsychological test performance and functional status in 42 individuals diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. A comprehensive battery of cognitive tests was employed in order to assess a wide range of neuropsychological abilities. Functional status was measured through the use of both a performance-based scale of activities of daily living (an expanded version of the Direct Assessment of Functional Status; DAFS, Loewenstein et al., 1989), and by a caregiver/informant-based rating scale (Instrumental Activities of Daily Living; IADL, Lawton & Brody, 1969). Findings suggest that neuropsychological functioning is moderately predictive of functional status. Using multiple regression analyses, neuropsychological variables accounted for 25% of the variance in the IADL and 50% of the variance in the DAFS. Individual domains of both functional measures were also significantly predicted by the neuropsychological variables. The findings provide evidence of a relationship between neuropsychological test performance and ADLs in an Alzheimer disease patient population.

How Valid Are Subjective Ratings of Prospective Memory in Mild Cognitive Impairment and Early Dementia?

“…Perhaps one of the most striking findings was that self-reports of memory impairment did not differ across the three groups, thereby aligning with a growing literature suggesting that insight into cognitive change in late adulthood may be relatively limited [16,3]. In contrast, informants tended to rate participants with dementia as having greater impairment than those with MCI or controls.…”

Executive Function and Activities of Daily Living in Alzheimer’s Disease: A Correlational Meta-Analysis

“…It is likely that more complex ADLs place higher demands on executive functions than simpler ADLs, but this information is lost when presenting total scores. Future studies could investigate the association between specific ADLs and EF; to date few studies have investigated individual ADLs [35,38,56,73,82]. These authors, coincidentally, used the same performance-based measure of ADL; perhaps the nature of performance-based measures of ADL encourages presentation of data from individual ADLs, although recently studies have begun to investigate the association between executive function and specific ADLs using questionnaires [48,71].…”

“…One study utilised a composite executive function score and individual test scores could not be obtained [34]; however, this article was included in secondary analysis that investigated different methods of assessing ADL. Another study that utilised a composite EF score [35] was included in the main analysis as the necessary correlational data were available in the lead author’s PhD thesis [36]. Therefore, 52 articles were included in the meta-analysis.…”

Use of immersive virtual reality to assess episodic memory: A validation study in older adults

“…diversity of memory situations that older adults experience in their daily lives (Bowman, 1996;Chaytor & Schmitter-Edgecombe, 2003;Farias, Harrell, Neumann, & Houtz, 2003;Piolino, Desgranges, & Eustache, 2009;Sbordonne & Long, 1996;Schultheis, Himelstein, & Rizzo, 2002;Shuchat, Ouellet, Moffat, & Belleville, 2012). In real life, memorising often occurs in noisy environments with multi-dimensional material and often happens while completing other tasks, such as walking, talking, or problem solving.…”