Comparing the usefulness of the INECO Frontal Screening and the Frontal Assessment Battery (FAB) in Frontotemporal Dementia

TERESA TORRALVA; MARÍA ROCA; EZEQUIEL GLEICHGERRCHT; FACUNDO MANES

Estambul

Encuentro; The Biennial Meeting of WFN RG ACD; 2010

WFN Aphasia and Cognitive Disorders Research Group

OBJECTIVE: The goal of our study was to compare the utility of the INECO Frontal Screening (IFS) and the Frontal Assessment Battery (FAB) in the detection of executive dysfunction in a group of behavioural variant Frontotemporal Dementia (bv-FTD) and Alzheimer Disease (AD) patients and to furthermore evaluate the sensitivity of both screening tests to differentiate bvFTD from AD. BACKGROUND: Although several brief sensitive screening tools are available to detect cognitive dysfunction, few tools have been developed exclusively to quickly assess executive function, which is the most common cognitive dysfunction in bv-FTD. The IFS and the FAB are two brief screening tests known to reflect executive functioning.DESIGN/METHODS: A total of 76 subjects, 26 of which were healthy controls, and 54 of which were diagnosed with dementia (25 patients presented with bvFTD and 25 with probable AD) were assessed with a general cognitive screening test (ACE-R), as well as the IFS and the FAB. RESULTS: Significant differences were found between the groups on both the IFS and FAB total scores, but only on the IFS controls outperformed both dementia groups and AD differed significantly from bvFTD patients. On the contrary, performance on the FAB was similar between the dementia groups. A cut-off score of 25 points (out of 30) on the IFS was associated with a senstivity of 92.2% and a specificity of 96.2% for the detection of dementia (both AD and bvFTD). On the FAB, a cut-off score of 14 (out of 18) showed a speficitiy of 100% but a sensitivity of as low as 51.0%. Discriminatory accuracy, as well as sensitivity and specificity were higher for the IFS. CONCLUSIONS: While both the IFS and the FAB are brief and specific tools for the detection of early executive dysfunction, our results reveal that the IFS is more sensitive and specific in differentiating bvFTD from AD, and its use in everyday clinical practice can contribute to the differential diagnosis between types of dementia.