Brief Screening Tests versus Clinical Staging in Senile Dementia of the Alzheimer Type

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Abstract
Several brief screening tests of cognitive function were compared with a reliable and valid global rating of the presence and severity of senile dementia of the Alzheimer type, the Washington University Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR). The six‐item Short Blessed Test, the Short Portable Mental Status Questionnaire, the 26‐item Blessed Information‐Memory‐Concentration Test, the Blessed Dementia Scale, and the Blessed Dementia Scale‐Cognitive were able to discern both the presence of dementia and its severity. The six‐item Short Blessed Test is preferred as a screening test because of its brevity, administration to the subject only, inclusion of a learning task, reliability, and neuropathologic validity. Evidence is presented for the convergent validity of the Initial Subject Protocol, used to derive the Clinical Dementia Rating.