[Is 'attention' important for the results of dementia screening? Relation among Digit Span Test, CST amd ADS in elderly patients].

This study focused on the relationship between attention and dementia screening test performance, using the adapted Wechsler's Digit Span test for elderly patients, the Cognitive Screening Test (CST) and the Amsterdam Dementia Screening Test (ADS6). Participants were dementia patients and psychiatric patients (n = 147). In both groups no floor-effect was found on the Digit Span test. Principal components analysis showed that CST and ADS6-scores had relatively high loadings on one factor, in contrast to digit span scores that loaded on a second factor. On average, psychiatric patients did hardly worse than normal controls. Attention deficits were more apparent in dementia patients. Considering a maximum of r = .41, these more or less subtle deficits were only moderately related to dementia screening test performance. It is concluded that the adapted Digit Span test is suitable for measuring attention deficits in elderly patients. However, Digit Span predicts performance on dementia screening test only to a modest degree.