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American Journal of Alzheimer's Disease and Other Dementias logoLink to American Journal of Alzheimer's Disease and Other Dementias
. 2011 Mar;26(2):134–138. doi: 10.1177/1533317510397330

Application of AD8 Questionnaire to Screen Very Mild Dementia in Taiwanese

Yuan-Han Yang 1, James E Galvin 2, John C Morris 3, Chiou-Lian Lai 4, Mei-Chuan Chou 5, Ching-Kuan Liu 6
PMCID: PMC10845353  PMID: 21415088

Abstract

The AD8 questionnaire developed by Washington University in St Louis is a screening tool with 8 questions to reliably differentiate nondemented from demented individuals even at the very mild stage. We recruited 239 participants, including 114 cognitively normal, 73 very mild dementia, and 52 mild dementia to validate its application in Taiwanese. The cut-off value of AD8 was 2 in discriminating cognitively normal from demented individuals with the area under curve (AUC) = 0.961, sensitivity = 97.6%, specificity = 78.1%, positive likelihood ratio (PLR) = 4.5, and negative likelihood ratio (NLR) = 0.03. The cut-off value also was 2 in discriminating nondemented from very mild dementia with the AUC = 0.948, sensitivity = 95.9%, specificity = 78.1%, PLR = 4.4, and NLR = 0.05. The Chinese AD8 is effective in discriminating individuals with dementia, even at its mildest stages from those without dementia with properties identical to the original English version. The cAD8 is a quick dementia screening tool that can be applied across cultures.

Keywords: AD8 questionnaire, very mild dementia, Taiwanese, Alzheimer’s disease

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Contributor Information

Yuan-Han Yang, Department of and Master's Program in Neurology, Faculty of Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical University, Graduate Institute of Medicine, College of Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical University, Department of Neurology, Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital.

James E. Galvin, Center of Excellence on Brain Aging, Departments of Neurology and Psychiatry, New York University Langone Medical Center, NY, USA.

John C. Morris, Department of Neurology, Pathology and Immunology, Alzheimer Disease Research Center, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA.

Chiou-Lian Lai, Department of and Master's Program in Neurology, Faculty of Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical University, Department of Neurology, Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital.

Mei-Chuan Chou, Kaohsiung Municipal Ta-Tung Hospital, Kaohsiung Medical University, Taiwan.

Ching-Kuan Liu, Department of and Master's Program in Neurology, Faculty of Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical University, Graduate Institute of Medicine, College of Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical University, Department of Neurology, Kaohsiung Municipal Hsiaokang Hospital, Taiwan, ckliu@kmu.edu.tw .

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