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I M Appollonio

Publications and source records attributed to I M Appollonio.

6 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

Discriminative and predictive power of an informant report in mild cognitive impairment.

BACKGROUND: The Informant Questionnaire on Cognitive Decline in the Elderly (IQCODE) requires caregivers to rate decline in patients' cognitive and functional performance and has never been used for mild cognitive impairment (MCI). METHODS: We contrasted the discriminative and predictive power of the IQCODE with that of the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) and a verbal episodic memory measure, the Rey's Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT), in 45 patients with MCI (mean (SD) age at baseline: 71.6 (4.7) years) and 30 outpatients with dementia (70.5 (6.3) years) attending the Neuropsychology Service, St Gerardo Hospital, and compared them with 55 cognitively intact elderly people (70.7 (7.1) years). Patients with MCI were followed up for at least 2 years or until conversion to dementia. RESULTS: In total, 24 patients with MCI (53.3%) had converted to dementia at follow up (mean (SD) duration of follow up 17.0 (7.3) months for converters and 35.0 (7.1) months for non-converters). At baseline, the ability to differentiate patients with MCI from healthy controls was similar for the IQCODE (area under the curve (AUC) 0.86) and the MMSE (AUC 0.84; z = 0.53, not significant). As predictors of conversion to dementia, a trend favouring the IQCODE (AUC 0.86) with respect to immediate (AUC 0.74) and delayed (AUC 0.75) recall on the RAVLT was apparent (z = 1.36, p = 0.087 versus immediate recall, z = 1.51, p = 0.064 versus delayed recall). The independent predictive ability of IQCODE and memory scores was evaluated through logistic regression, and the questionnaire alone yielded the best correct classification of 81%. CONCLUSIONS: The IQCODE is an informant based measure of cognitive decline that may provide a relevant contribution to the diagnostic and prognostic investigation of patients with MCI.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Ineffectiveness of an Italian NART-equivalent for the estimation of verbal learning ability in normal elderly.

Comparison between current and premorbid memory ability may be of help when trying to make a timely diagnosis of cognitive decline in questionable dementia. In the present study, we evaluated the possibility of estimating episodic verbal memory scores at the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT) from an irregular words reading task held to resist to deterioration, that is the Italian analogue of the NART, the TIB (Test d'Intelligenza Breve--brief intelligence test). A regression analysis was performed in a large sample of healthy elderly, using RAVLT scores as dependent variable and TIB score, MMSE score, age and education as predictors. We failed to find a relationship between the two tests that was strong enough for a reliable estimation of memory ability.

Aged↗
PubMed2003

Cognitive [correction of cognitve] estimation: comparison of two tests in nondemented parkinsonian patients.

The Time and Weight Estimation test (STEP) and the Cognitive Estimation Task (CET) are two recently devised tests for the assessment of cognitive estimation. In the present study, we compared their performance in 30 non-demented idiopathic parkinsonian (PD) patients, also evaluated with the Frontal Assessment Battery (FAB) as an index of executive impairment, with the aim of verifying the putative frontal circuitry of cognitive estimation processes. Six patients (20%) showed a pathological performance on either or both tests. After division of the PD sample into tertiles based on the FAB score, no significant difference was detected by either estimation test. Furthermore, the two questionnaires were unrelated to each other. Thus, deficits of cognitive estimation ability appear to be mild in PD without dementia and do not correlate with executive impairment. Unexpectedly, the CET and the STEP seem to have no unique underlying construct.

Aged↗
PubMed2003

Assessing clinically relevant cognitive decline: preliminary data on a new method.

Physiological age-related cognitive decline, practice effect and regression to the mean may interfere with the interpretation of psychometric changes between subsequent neuropsychological evaluations. The standardized regression-based (SRB) change score allows investigators to define clinically relevant cognitive change on an individual basis controlling for these confounding factors. We performed a preliminary study to test its applicability and usefulness in the neuropsychological diagnosis of dementia. We derived a regression equation for the tests of a widely used Italian battery for global cognitive assessment, the Mental Deterioration Battery, in a sample of 20 normal elderly and we tested the potential clinical application of the SRB methodology in two cases of questionable dementia.

Aged↗
PubMed1993

Memory in patients with cerebellar degeneration.

Eleven patients with relatively selective cerebellar degeneration and 11 normal control subjects underwent a comprehensive neurologic and neuropsychological examination. The neuropsychological tests assessed general intellectual ability, different aspects of memory (effortful, automatic, and implicit memory processes), speed of information processing, and verbal fluency (using both category and letter fluency tasks). The results indicated that cerebellar patients were significantly impaired only on tasks requiring the use of executive functions, such as the initiation/perseveration subtest of the Mattis Dementia Rating Scale or the fluency tests, and on memory measures requiring greater processing effort. They performed normally on automatic and implicit measures of memory. Performance on the effortful memory and executive measures was not associated with neurologic variables or mood state. After controlling for the initiation/perseveration deficit, the effortful memory scores of the cerebellar patients were no longer different from those of controls. The present study suggests that memory in patients with relatively pure cerebellar dysfunction is only partially compromised and that the impairment is secondary to a deficit in executive functions.

Adult↗