With the prevalence of Alzheimer's Disease (AD) doubling about every 5 years between the ages of 65 and 85, a more efficient method of diagnosis would offer significant advantages over current methods. Availability of an initial set of AD screening and baseline functioning devices at minimal cost to a wide range of people over 50 could contribute to the delay or prevention of AD onset by signaling the risk of dementia early enough for emerging treatments to be effective. The proposal is to develop and validate a Computer-Assisted Neuropsychological Screen for Alzheimer's Disease (CANS-AD). The usability of this self-administered test has already been established; the present studies would assess test-retest reliability, perform validity studies and compare these procedures to neuropsychological tests previously found to be predictive of AD. Factor analysis will be performed to refine the tests and database, and reporting procedures as ell as a central database website will be developed. Phase II studies would assess predictive ability of the test, and further refine the product package.
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