A New Apraxia Test for Turkish Elderly; DEKODa

Introduction Apraxia refers to inability to perform skilled or learned acts, which cannot be explained by primary motor, sensory or comprehension impairments. The currently used foreign apraxia batteries are quite complex, lengthy and not compatible for uneducated people. This study aimed to develop a new, simple and short apraxia test for uneducated people. Method Subjects with Alzheimer's disease (AD) (n:38), mild cognitive impairment (MCI) (n:39) and healthy control group (n: 263) participated to study. All participants were administered neuropsychological battery which included Yesavage geriatric depression scale, Barthel index, mini-mental status examination (MMSE), and DEKODa apraxia test (DEKODa). SPSS 20.0 was used to make comparisons of groups. Results The Yesavage geriatric depression scale, Barthel Index, MMSE and DEKODa were different from each other in almost all groups (p<0.001). In the comparison of MMSE and DEKODa scores used the Pearson correlation analysis, a significant correlation was found between each of the groups (p< 0.05). The cut-off value of DEKODa score was determined as 10, any score at or below 10 was indicating as Alzheimer's disease, and its sensitivity and specificity values were76.3% and 75% respectively. Discussion We described a new battery for apraxia, named as DEKODa, derived form a community based study designed for Turkish speaking elderly population. Lower scores of DEKODa than 10 points indicated AD. The scores for MCI subjects were similar to healthy elderly controls and different than AD. These finding imply that DEKODa can be useful for detecting AD diagnosis in elderly population.