Ten-Point Clock Test: a correlation analysis with other neuropsychological tests in dementia

BACKGROUND: Neuropsychology can be useful for differentiating patients with fronto-temporal dementia (FTD) from those with Alzheimer disease (AD) and those with Vascular Dementia (VaD). OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was twofold: to explore possible employment of the Ten-Point Clock Test in early identification of different types of cognitive distribution and to relate to its execution to other specific impairment, bound to the selected pathology. METHOD: We compared 30 patients with FLD, to a group of 30 probable-AD patients accordingly to the NINCDS-ADRDA criteria, and to a group of 30 probable VaD patients, according to the NINDS-AIREN criteria. RESULTS: AD group showed the worst results in Clock Drawing Test. On the contrary, FLD group did produce the worst performances in Proverb Interpretation Tasks. VaD worst performance was that of phonological fluency. Our data seem to demonstrate that in mild dementia, stated by the MMSE score (around 22) and confirmed by the data derived from the other neuropsychological evaluation, the Clock Drawing Test is quite sensitive to detect cognitive impairment, even if of different origins. CONCLUSIONS: Ten-Point Clock Test is a strong tool, in order to identify early forms of Alzheimer, and to help differential diagnosis when frontal or vascular dementia have been taken into account. More data will be necessary to give to this speculative interpretation, a neuroimaging and neuroanatomical support. However, this report may encourage the wider use of this parametric test, easily applicable and well accepted by the population in order to implement data concerning cognitive disruption.