Validity of the Five-Word Test for the Evaluation of Verbal Episodic Memory and Dementia in a Memory Clinic Setting

Abstract

The FWT is a valid test of verbal episodic memory. It is useful to discriminate dementia especially AD from isolated subjective complaints.

The Italian Version of the Five-Word Test: A Simple Diagnostic Test for Dementia due to Alzheimer’s Disease in Routine Clinical Practice

“…We administered FWT and the short story test to patients suffering from MCI or dementia due to AD [19, 20] and to a control group: our findings confirm literature data [16, 17, 22] demonstrating the effectiveness of FWT as a tool in identifying organic disorders of memory encoding and in distinguishing AD patients from controls. The distribution of subjects by age, gender, and education level was different among the diagnostic subgroups, reflecting the day-to-day work in a memory clinic with a heterogeneous, unselected population.…”

“…Considering that data for standardized raw score adjustment are not available for the FWT [16, 17, 22, 23], the multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that the TRS remained discriminant even when taking into account age, education level, and sex distribution, both in MCI (95% CI: 0.14–0.45; p < 0.001) and in AD patients (95% CI: 0.004–0.18; p < 0.001).…”

“…The latter is commonly used in our setting to measure a patient's abilities to learn verbal information and recall it after a five-minute delay. In 2012, the FWT was compared favourably with the free and cued selective reminding test (FCSRT), which is at present the gold standard for measurement of memory impairment in dementia patients [17]: this test is conceptually similar to FWT, since it is also derived from the Grober and Buschke paradigm [14], but is longer and more laborious in terms of routine daily testing.…”

“…If the subjects failed again to recollect any words, the sheet would be shown and removed again until the missing items were identified and retrieved (max. 3 repetitions) to ensure the possibility to proceed with the second phase; this step had no impact on the individual IRS [16, 17]. During the subsequent 5 minutes, subjects performed some nonverbal interference tasks (clock drawing test, copying of the pentagons as part of MMSE); then, a delayed recall was proposed to the subjects making use of the same procedure as before, providing a delayed recall score (DRS: number of retrieved items at delayed free + cued recall).…”

“…On this basis, the five-word test (FWT) was developed and validated in a French-speaking population [16, 17]: it has been demonstrated that this is a simple and valid test of verbal episodic memory, easy to use for the screening of AD.…”