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BACKGROUND: Routine screening of high-risk elderly people for early cognitive impairment is constrained by the limitations of currently available cognitive function tests. The Telephone Interview of Cognitive Status is a novel instrument for assessment of cognitive function that can be administered in person or by telephone. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the determinants and utility of TICS-M (13-item modified version) for assessment of cognitive function in healthy elderly people. METHODS: The utility of TICS-M was compared with more widely used MMSE and CAMCOG in a cross-sectional survey of 120 older (62 to 89 years) UK adults. RESULTS: The TICS-M cognitive test scores (27.97, SD 4.15) were normally distributed in contrast with those for MMSE and CAMCOG that had a negatively skewed distribution. TICS-M scores were inversely correlated with age (r = -0.21) and with the NART fullscale IQ (r = -0.35), but were independent of years of education in this cohort. TICS-M was highly correlated with MMSE (r = 0.57) and with CAMCOG (r = 0.62) scores. The time required to complete the test is comparable to MMSE and substantially less than CAMCOG. CONCLUSIONS: The normal distribution of TICS-M test scores suggest that this test is less constrained by the ceiling effect which limits the utility of MMSE and CAMCOG test scores in detecting early cognitive impairment. TICS-M is an appropriate instrument to assess cognitive function in both research and in clinical practice.

Original publication

DOI

10.1002/gps.830

Type

Journal article

Journal

Int J Geriatr Psychiatry

Publication Date

04/2003

Volume

18

Pages

318 - 324

Keywords

Aged, Aged, 80 and over, Cognition Disorders, Cross-Sectional Studies, Dementia, Humans, Interview, Psychological, Mass Screening, Middle Aged, Psychiatric Status Rating Scales, Remote Consultation, Reproducibility of Results, Statistics, Nonparametric, Telephone