Neuropsychological Assessments

A set of neuropsychological tests will be used to assess cognitive function and behavior/mood of all the participants, and their activities of daily living will also be measured. The assessments will be performed at baseline, 12 weeks, and 24 weeks during the study period. (1) The Mini-Mental State Examination (Katzman et al., 1988) is the most frequently used assessment to measure global cognitive function. It is a 30-point scale that assesses orientation, memory, attention and calculation, recall, and language, with higher scores indicating better cognitive function. (2) The AD assessment scale-cognitive subscale (ADAS-cog; Chu et al., 2000) is a 12-item scale that primarily measures word recall, ability to follow commands, constructional praxis, naming, ideational praxis, orientation, word recognition, comprehension of spoken language, word-finding, language ability, and attention. The scores range from 0 to 75 and higher scores indicate greater cognitive impairment. (3) The Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS; Yesavage et al., 1982) is a short questionnaire to identify depression in older people and it is validated in mild to moderate dementia. (4) The Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI; Wang et al., 2012) is an assessment of 12 different behavioral and psychological symptoms common in AD. Each symptom is rated and scored according to the frequency and severity reported by the informants. The distress level of the caregivers associated with each symptom is also rated. (5) The Barthel Index (Mahoney and Barthel, 1965), is a 10-item, ordinal scale used to measure performance in activities of daily living. It is also performed by interviewing the caregivers.