Computer test for early Alzheimer's disease

Reported by Susan Aldridge, PhD, medical journalist

A short and more accurate test for early stage Alzheimer's disease looks promising.
The traditional test for dementia involves having subjects recall what they can from a ten word list. They are then given a task to distract them and then asked to recall the list again. The total score of this final trial is used to interpret the result.

However, researchers at the University of California have devised a new version of the test which looks at the patterns of words recalled based on their placement in the list. The test, known as the mental skills test, can be done in about ten minutes online. It can distinguish between normal performance and mild cognitive impairment with about 97 per cent accuracy. This could be an important way of detecting early dementia so that treatment that could delay the progression of the disease can be started.

Source
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 29th March 2005