Jong Choul Yoon

The Prevalence of Dementia in Older People in an Urban Population of Korea: The Seoul Study

OBJECTIVES: To estimate prevalence of dementia and its subtypes in older people in Seoul, a metropolitan area of Korea, and compare these findings with estimates reported for other populations.

Total Scores of the CERAD Neuropsychological Assessment Battery: Validation for Mild Cognitive Impairment and Dementia Patients With Diverse Etiologies

OBJECTIVES This study aimed to validate the two total scores (TS-I and TS-II) of the Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer Disease neuropsychological battery (CERAD-NP) for a large elderly population including mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and dementia patients with various etiologic backgrounds. The authors also investigated whether the addition of frontal-executive function score can improve the discrimination accuracy of the total scores for dementia and MCI. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS One thousand three hundred thirty-six normal comparison (NC), 583 dementia (420 AD, 111 non-AD dementia, and 52 mixed AD with non-AD dementia), and 250 MCI (223 amnestic and 27 nonamnestic MCI) individuals living in the community were included (all aged 60 years and older). RESULTS Both TS-I and TS-II were highly correlated with other global cognitive and functional scales. Both total scores showed, though modest, superior NC versus MCI discrimination ability to Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE). Their discrimination ability for NC versus dementia was excellent and significantly better, especially in discriminating very mild dementia, than MMSE. The addition of frontal-executive test score to TS-I or TS-II did not make a significant improvement in dementia or MCI discrimination ability. Both of them also showed higher test-retest and interrater reliability than MMSE or any individual neuropsychological tests in the CERAD-NP. CONCLUSION These results strongly support the validity and usefulness of CERAD total scores for early detection and progression monitoring of MCI and dementia in clinical and research settings.

Validity of the telephone interview for cognitive status (TICS) and modified TICS (TICSm) for mild cognitive imparment (MCI) and dementia screening

This study aimed to validate the TICS and modified TICS (TICSm) in Korean elderly population and to compare MCI and dementia screening ability between TICS and TICSm. TICS and TICSm were administered to 70 cognitively normal (CN), 75 MCI, and 85 dementia subjects, with mini-mental state examination (MMSE) and other cognitive and functional measures. TICS and TICSm scores were highly correlated with other global cognitive and functional scores. The CN vs. dementia discrimination ability of both instruments was as excellent as that of MMSE (sensitivity/specificity at optimal cutoff: 87.1/90.1 for TICS; 88.2/90.0 for TICSm). Although their CN vs. MCI discrimination performances were comparable to that of MMSE, they were far from perfect (sensitivity/specificity: 69.3/68.6 for TICS; 73.3/67.1 for TICSm). There was no significant difference in dementia or MCI screening accuracy between TICS and TICSm. Both of them also showed high test-retest reliability. Our findings indicate that TICS and TICSm are reliable and as valid as MMSE in regard of screening cognitively impaired elderly. In terms of the comparison between TICSm and TICS, however, TICSm has little advantage over TICS for screening dementia and even MCI, in spite of longer administration time and more efforts required.

A Normative Study of the Digit Span in an Educationally Diverse Elderly Population

Objective The purpose of this study was to explore the effect of demographic variables on Digit Span test (DS) performance in an educationally diverse elderly population and to provide normative information. Methods The DS was administered to 784 community-dwelling volunteers aged 60-90 years with an educational history of from zero to 25 years of full-time education. People with serious neurological, medical and psychiatric disorders (including dementia) were excluded. Results Age, education and gender were found to be significantly associated with performance on the DS. Based on the results obtained, DS norms were stratified by age (2 strata), education (3 strata), and gender (2 strata). Conclusion Our results on DS performance suggest that both attention and working memory are influenced by age, education and gender. The present study provides reasonably comprehensive normative information on the DS for an educationally diverse elderly population.

The prevalence of cognitive impairment with no dementia in older people : The seoul study

This study aimed to estimate prevalence of cognitive impairment with no dementia (CIND) in older people. It was conducted in an urban area of Korea, Seoul, and employed a two‐stage design for case identification.