Determining impairment in the Swedish, Polish and German ECAS: the importance of adjusting for age and educationShow others and affiliations
2023 (English)In: Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Frontotemporal Degeneration, ISSN 2167-8421, E-ISSN 2167-9223, Vol. 24, no 5-6, p. 475-484Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
Objective: Age and years of education are strong predictors of cognitive performance in several versions of the Edinburgh Cognitive and Behavioral ALS Screen (ECAS) and cutoffs for the Swedish and Polish versions are not established yet. Here we evaluated the performance of healthy subjects on the national versions of the Swedish and Polish ECAS and compared cognitive performance on three European translations of the ECAS.
Methods: The ECAS performances of healthy subjects from Sweden (n = 111), Poland (n = 124) and Germany (n = 86) were compared. Based on the test results on the national versions of ECAS, age- and education-adjusted cutoffs were compared for the German, Swedish and Polish versions, respectively.
Results: Age and years of education correlated with performance in the ECAS. Swedish subjects under the age of 60 years and Swedish subjects with low education level scored significantly higher in memory than the respective German and Polish subgroups. German and Polish subjects over 60 years of age performed significantly better in language than the respective Swedish subgroup. The Polish cohort in total had lower executive scores compared to the Swedish cohort, and lower than the German subjects in the higher education subgroup.
Conclusions: The results highlight the importance of establishing age- and education-adjusted ECAS cutoffs not only in general, but also for seemingly similar populations of different origins. The results should be taken into account when comparing cognition data across patient populations including in drug trials where an ECAS test result is being used as an inclusion criterium or outcome measure.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Taylor & Francis, 2023. Vol. 24, no 5-6, p. 475-484
Keywords [en]
ALS, cognition test, ECAS, FTD, population differences
National Category
Neurology
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-206768DOI: 10.1080/21678421.2023.2192248ISI: 000961175100001PubMedID: 36994762Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85152069229OAI: oai:DiVA.org:umu-206768DiVA, id: diva2:1753430
Funder
The Swedish Brain Foundation, 2013-0279The Swedish Brain Foundation, 2016-0303The Swedish Brain Foundation, 2018-0310Swedish Research Council, 2012-3167Swedish Research Council, 2017-03100Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, 2012.0091Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, 2014.0305Region Västerbotten, 2013-75902023-04-272023-04-272024-07-02Bibliographically approved