Contributions
Abstract: P710
Type: Poster Sessions
Abstract Category: Clinical aspects of MS - Clinical assessment tools
Background: To enable successful monitoring of cognitive function in MS clinics, a number of screening tools have been developed. The primary aim of our study is to determine whether the Auditory Recorded Cognition Screen (ARCS) is equivalent to the Brief International Cognitive Assessment for Multiple Sclerosis (BICAMS) in measuring cognitive function. Importantly, ARCS does not require a technician to administer the test which provides practical advantages over BICAMS.
Methods: 52 MS participants (42 RRMS, 10 SPMS) and 49 age, sex and education matched healthy controls (HC) underwent the BICAMS battery and ARCS consecutively. The ability for each test to detect differences in performance between MS and HC was evaluated using T tests. Associations between test scores were then explored by correlation analysis using Pearson's r testing. ROC diagnostic analysis was performed on the total ARCS, to estimate AUC as an index of accuracy to predict any impairment using the gold standard BICAMS outcomes. A p-value of < 0.05 was considered as statistically significant.
Results: The study cohort was 82% female, aged 49+2years, with 53% reaching at least senior high school. MS patients had a mean EDSS 2.7+0.3 and disease duration of 11.3+1.3years. Total ARCS, memory and fluency domain scores were reduced in the MS group by up to 16% compared to those of HCs (P< 0.002). All the BICAMS tests were lower in the MS group, by up to 19% compared to HC values (P< 0.01). The magnitude of total ARCS, memory, and attention domain scores correlated with raw scores for all BICAMS battery tests (r= 0.3 to 0.5, P< 0.01). ROC curve analyses indicated that total ARCS is a very good predictor of cognitive impairment for any of the BICAMS tests (AUC=0.8, P=0.00045).
Conclusions: Analysis of our comparison between the BICAMS battery and ARCS cognitive screening tools suggests that, ARCS provides good accuracy for measuring cognitive function of MS patients. Unlike BICAMS, ARCS provides an overall cognitive function score as well as information on language function. Since ARCS does not require a technician to be present during testing these results support the utility of this method for cognitive screening in the clinic.
Disclosure: Karen Ribbons: nothing to disclose
Gayle Lea: nothing to disclose
Rodney Lea: nothing to disclose
Jeannette Lechner-Scott: has accepted travel compensation from Novartis, Biogen and Merck Serono. Her institution receives the honoraria for talks and advisory board commitment and also clinic support from Bayer Health Care, Biogen Idec, CSL, Genzyme Sanofi, Merck Serono, Novartis and Teva.
Abstract: P710
Type: Poster Sessions
Abstract Category: Clinical aspects of MS - Clinical assessment tools
Background: To enable successful monitoring of cognitive function in MS clinics, a number of screening tools have been developed. The primary aim of our study is to determine whether the Auditory Recorded Cognition Screen (ARCS) is equivalent to the Brief International Cognitive Assessment for Multiple Sclerosis (BICAMS) in measuring cognitive function. Importantly, ARCS does not require a technician to administer the test which provides practical advantages over BICAMS.
Methods: 52 MS participants (42 RRMS, 10 SPMS) and 49 age, sex and education matched healthy controls (HC) underwent the BICAMS battery and ARCS consecutively. The ability for each test to detect differences in performance between MS and HC was evaluated using T tests. Associations between test scores were then explored by correlation analysis using Pearson's r testing. ROC diagnostic analysis was performed on the total ARCS, to estimate AUC as an index of accuracy to predict any impairment using the gold standard BICAMS outcomes. A p-value of < 0.05 was considered as statistically significant.
Results: The study cohort was 82% female, aged 49+2years, with 53% reaching at least senior high school. MS patients had a mean EDSS 2.7+0.3 and disease duration of 11.3+1.3years. Total ARCS, memory and fluency domain scores were reduced in the MS group by up to 16% compared to those of HCs (P< 0.002). All the BICAMS tests were lower in the MS group, by up to 19% compared to HC values (P< 0.01). The magnitude of total ARCS, memory, and attention domain scores correlated with raw scores for all BICAMS battery tests (r= 0.3 to 0.5, P< 0.01). ROC curve analyses indicated that total ARCS is a very good predictor of cognitive impairment for any of the BICAMS tests (AUC=0.8, P=0.00045).
Conclusions: Analysis of our comparison between the BICAMS battery and ARCS cognitive screening tools suggests that, ARCS provides good accuracy for measuring cognitive function of MS patients. Unlike BICAMS, ARCS provides an overall cognitive function score as well as information on language function. Since ARCS does not require a technician to be present during testing these results support the utility of this method for cognitive screening in the clinic.
Disclosure: Karen Ribbons: nothing to disclose
Gayle Lea: nothing to disclose
Rodney Lea: nothing to disclose
Jeannette Lechner-Scott: has accepted travel compensation from Novartis, Biogen and Merck Serono. Her institution receives the honoraria for talks and advisory board commitment and also clinic support from Bayer Health Care, Biogen Idec, CSL, Genzyme Sanofi, Merck Serono, Novartis and Teva.