Preliminary data on the effect of culture on the assessment of Alzheimer's disease-related verbal memory impairment with the International Shopping List Test

The International Shopping List Test (ISLT) is a measure of verbal learning and memory, developed specifically for use in people from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds. In this report, we describe two studies that examined the ISLT's ability to detect memory impairment and memory decline in patients with mild Alzheimer's disease (AD) from a range of cultural and linguistic backgrounds. In Study 1, the performance of Australian-English-speaking adults with mild AD was compared with that of native Australian-English- and Korean-speaking patients with mild AD. Compared with controls, patients with AD from both language groups showed large but equivalent impairments in total recall, delayed recall, rate of learning, and primacy and retention-weighted recall (RWR) measures on the ISLT. In Study 2, the rate of deterioration in verbal memory over 1 year was examined in groups of native Canadian-English, French, and Korean speakers with mild AD using the total recall, delayed recall, and RWR measures. Rates of change on all three measures were equivalent across the language groups, although the magnitude of deterioration was most pronounced for the total recall and RWR measures. Taken together, these results suggest that the ISLT is valid and reliable for the assessment of verbal learning and memory impairment and decline in patients with mild AD from diverse language groups.