DemTect-B = DemTect-B : ein Äquivalenztest zum kognitiven Screening DemTect-A® : a parallel test version to the cognitive screening instrument DemTect-A®

BACKGROUND: Cognitive screening methods are useful, although non-exclusive instruments in dementia diagnosis. One such screening is the DemTect-A, which was introduced in Germany in 2000 and has since found widespread use. In the form of the DemTect-B an equivalent test for the DemTect-A is presented. Due to its identical level of difficulty, the DemTect-B is also suitable for follow-up investigations. No other screening test in German-speaking countries has a parallel version. METHODS: 80 control subjects with a mean age of 65 years (SD = 0.83, 46 women, 34 men) participated in the investigation. To test for equivalence, Dem-Tect-A and DemTect-B were offered in randomised order. With all the control subjects, the CDR (Clinical Dementia Rating Scale) has been carried out to exclude cognitive impairment. The structure of the DemTect-B is nearly identical to that of the DemTect, only the semantic fluency task "supermarket" has been replaced with an animal naming task in the B version. For this task, a separate conversion had to be calculated. Upon completion of this transformation, the total test values did not differ on a statistically significant level. CONCLUSION: The DemTect-B is a replication of the DemTect-A and both can be mutually interchanged. It is applied especially in the course of examinations and is a useful tool to identify even patients with mild dementia and mild cognitive impairment