Very mild senile dementia of the Alzheimer type. II. Psychometric test performance.

A brief battery of psychometric tests was used to compare 41 individuals with very mild senile dementia of the Alzheimer type (SDAT) with 83 healthy participants and 66 individuals with mild SDAT. Although canonical analysis indicated that the same psychological functions (memory, speeded psychomotor performance, and language) are involved in both very mild and mild SDAT, objective levels of performance by the very mildly affected individuals overlapped extensively with those of both healthy aged and mildly demented individuals. Consideration of premorbid individual differences in psychological functions will probably be required if psychometric test performances are to be effective in detecting SDAT in the very mild stage.