Word reading threshold and mild cognitive impairment: a validation study

Abstract

BackgroundIt was previously found, in a pilot study, that Word Reading Threshold (WRT) test is abnormally prolonged in individuals with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), with high sensitivity and specificity. This validation study examines the WRT test as a prognostic tool in MCI individuals. We wish to confirm in a larger group the sensitivity and specificity of the WRT test and determine whether it is influenced by deterioration on other cognitive domains.MethodsWe measured WRT in 60 MCI individuals, 29 AD patients, and 33 normal elderly control (NE). We followed the MCI individuals over 8 years to monitor who progressed to dementia.ResultsWe found a statistically significant difference in WRT scores between the three groups. However, using the same cutoff of 85 milliseconds suggested by Massoud and his colleagues, we found lower diagnostic sensitivity (72%) and specificity (76%) when comparing NC and AD. Furthermore, the test did not clearly differentiate MCI individuals who progressed to dementia from those who did not. WRT was found to correlate to some degree with other cognitive domains, especially attention.ConclusionsWe conclude that the WRT is insufficient alone as a diagnostic tool for prodromal AD.

Assessment of Language Function in Older Mandarin-Speaking Adults with Mild Cognitive Impairment using Multifaceted Language Tests

“…Other studies demonstrating significant impairment in the aMCI group [37,38,47] have included stimuli with expanded word lengths for repetition tasks or used narrative stories as writing stimuli, which presumably required greater cognitive resources to perform the tasks than did those required in the tasks used in our study. Alternatively, we did not identify group differences in writing and reading aloud domains, possibly because we measured only behavioral accuracy at the coarse-grained level, similar to the clinical assessment context, unlike other studies that have used finer-grained measurements of written and reading latencies [34,35] and analyzed data by using machine learning techniques [47]. Although semantic processing may be involved in the reading aloud, repetition, and writing domains, low task demands may enable older adults with aMCI to complete language tasks in an automatic manner by leveraging frequently learned connections between input and output lexicons in different modalities [32,49].…”

“…Comprehensive language test batteries, employed by Jokel et al [32] and Tsantali et al [33], have demonstrated that individuals with aMCI exhibit deficits in tasks involving language functions beyond lexical-semantic processing, such as sentence comprehension and auditory spelling. In addition, studies utilizing language tests that focus on aspects other than lexical and semantic processing, such as reading aloud, repetition, and writing abilities, have found more significant impairments in older adults with aMCI compared to healthy controls [34][35][36][37][38]. Poor performance in these tasks may be partially attributed to decreased executive control and working memory span, which can negatively impact processes involved in understanding various syntactic structures and temporally storing separate letters for different words [39].…”

Evaluating the real-world representativeness of participants with mild cognitive impairment in Canadian research protocols: a comparison of the characteristics of a memory clinic patients and research samples

“… Xie et al ( 43 ) Québec 187 M = 80, SD = 6 F: 101 (54.01%) M: 86 (45.99%) ≤ 12 years: n = 56; > 12 years: n = 80; 51 missing cases Petersen ( 27 , 122 ) M = 26.6, SD = 2 Observ. Exclusion: Participants with less than 2 MMSE scores Arsenault-Lapierre et al ( 179 ) Québec 60 M = 75, SD = 7 M = 11.2, SD = 3.1 Petersen ( 120 ) M = 27.1, SD = 2.2 GDS: M = 6.7, SD = 4.9 Observ. Exclusion: Reversible causes of cognitive dysfunction Arsenault-Lapierre et al ( 180 ) Québec 21 M = 77.1, SD = 1.3 F: 7 (33.33%) M: 14 (66.67%) M = 15.9, SD = 1.0 Petersen ( ...…”

Diagnostic Value of Time-Constrained Naming Test in Mild Cognitive Impairment

“…Complaints of difficulty in finding words are common in the elderly, and are even more common and challenging in elderly individuals with MCI [2,3]. However, studies of the differences in performance between individuals with MCI and healthy elderly (HE) subjects have reported mixed findings [4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14]. Evaluation of naming ability in individuals with MCI requires the consideration of a number of factors and characteristics affecting performance.…”

“…Recent reviews have yielded evidence supporting the existence of noun naming deficits in individuals with MCI [10,14]. However, individual studies have revealed contradictory results: while some studies suggest that individuals with MCI performed significantly more poorly on the BNT than HE subjects [4,5,6,7,8,9,11,12,13], other studies did not find significant differences between the two groups [10,25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32]. These inconsistent reports about the performance on BNT in MCI can be explained by differences in the diagnostic criteria, procedural differences in the naming tasks, and the possibility that only a segment of patients with MCI has naming deficits [33].…”