Alzheimer's Disease Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Alzheimer's Disease, including details on diagnosis, memory loss, heredity, treatment, medication.

Executive dysfunction screening test for neuropsychiatric disorders.

Parks RW, Thiyagesh SN, Levine DS, Lee KH, Bhaker R, Mysore A, Ingram L, Young C, Birkett P, Pegg E, Woodruff PW

University of Sheffield School of Medicine, Sheffield, United Kingdom. r.parks@sheffield.ac.uk

The Analogies Understanding Test (AUT) was developed as a brief cognitive screening task of executive problem solving. A few of the test items at the beginning are "facilitated" as a means of engaging patients. Individuals with schizophrenia and mild Alzheimer's Disease (AD) made significantly less correct responses than their control groups. The schizophrenia patients, but not AD patients, made significantly more perseverations than controls on the AUT. As expected, AUT performance in schizophrenia patients correlated with the Wisconsin Card Sorting test measures. Preliminary findings suggest that the AUT test may be useful as a measure of executive dysfunction in neuropsychiatric patients.

Published 16 March 2007 in Int J Neurosci, 117(4): 507-18.
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