AIM: Clinicians need an objective scale to measure apathy in patients with dementia. However, different cutoff scores for the Apathy Evaluation Scale Informant version (AES-I), an international apathy scale, have been used in previous studies. The purpose of this study was to investigate the cutoff score, reliability and validity of the Japanese version of the AES-I (AES-I-J). METHODS: We acquired the author's permission to translate the AES from English to Japanese. The subjects of this study included 50 patients with dementia living in institutions or the community. The mean (standard deviation; SD) age of the subjects was 82.7 (5.7) years, the mean (SD) educational level was 8.9 (2.7) years and the mean (SD) Mini-Mental State Examination score was 14.8 (8.1). We provided the caregivers with two apathy scales to assess each patient: the AES-I-J (re-test: four weeks later) and the Neuropsychiatric Inventory in Nursing Home version apathy score. RESULTS: The mean (SD) score for the AES-I-J was 45.8 (16.2). For this test, Cronbach's α was 0.97, and the intraclass correlation coefficient of test-retest was 0.88 (95%CI: 0.72-0.95) (p<0.0001). In addition, the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.90 (95%CI: 0.78-1.00) (p<0.0001) and the cut-off score was 45/46, with a sensitivity of 89.5% and specificity of 81.0%. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that the cutoff score for the AES-I-J is higher than that used in previous reports.
AIM: Clinicians need an objective scale to measure apathy in patients with dementia. However, different cutoff scores for the Apathy Evaluation Scale Informant version (AES-I), an international apathy scale, have been used in previous studies. The purpose of this study was to investigate the cutoff score, reliability and validity of the Japanese version of the AES-I (AES-I-J). METHODS: We acquired the author's permission to translate the AES from English to Japanese. The subjects of this study included 50 patients with dementia living in institutions or the community. The mean (standard deviation; SD) age of the subjects was 82.7 (5.7) years, the mean (SD) educational level was 8.9 (2.7) years and the mean (SD) Mini-Mental State Examination score was 14.8 (8.1). We provided the caregivers with two apathy scales to assess each patient: the AES-I-J (re-test: four weeks later) and the Neuropsychiatric Inventory in Nursing Home version apathy score. RESULTS: The mean (SD) score for the AES-I-J was 45.8 (16.2). For this test, Cronbach's α was 0.97, and the intraclass correlation coefficient of test-retest was 0.88 (95%CI: 0.72-0.95) (p<0.0001). In addition, the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.90 (95%CI: 0.78-1.00) (p<0.0001) and the cut-off score was 45/46, with a sensitivity of 89.5% and specificity of 81.0%. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that the cutoff score for the AES-I-J is higher than that used in previous reports.