Validation of the RUDAS for the Identification of Dementia in Illiterate and Low-Educated Older Adults in Lima, Peru

• Published in: Frontiers in neurology 2020-05, Vol.11, p.374
• Main Authors: Custodio, Nilton, Montesinos, Rosa, Lira, David, Herrera-Perez, Eder, Chavez, Kristhy, Reynoso-Guzman, Willyams, Pintado-Caipa, Maritza, Cuenca, José, Gamboa, Carlos, Metcalf, Tatiana
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Alzheimer's disease; brief cognitive assessment; dementia; mild cognitive impairment; neurocognitive disorders; Neurology; neuropsychology
• ISSN: 1664-2295; 1664-2295
• DOI: 10.3389/fneur.2020.00374

To evaluate the performance of the Peruvian version of the Rowland Universal Dementia Assessment Scale (RUDAS-PE) in discriminating between controls and patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and dementia in an illiterate population with low-levels of education. We compared the cognitive performance of 187 elderly subjects who were illiterate (controls = 60; MCI = 64; dementia = 63). Neuropsychological measures included the RUDAS-PE, Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), INECO Frontal Screening (IFS), and Pfeffer Functional Activities Questionnaire (PFAQ). The results were compared to a neuropsychological evaluation (gold standard), including use of Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR) scores. We found a Cronbach's alpha was 0.65; Spearman's correlation coefficient was 0.79 ( < 0.01). The area under the receiver operating characteristics curve for the RUDAS to discriminate dementia from MCI was 98.0% with an optimal cut-off