Screening Test for Alzheimer's Disease with Proverbs: performance of healthy elderly with Alzheimer's disease at an early stage

INTRODUCTION: Dementia are increasingly prevalent in population. The most common causes of dementia is Alzheimer's disease (AD). Screening tests have been used for the premature diagnosis of Alzheimer disease (AD), specifically in the executive functions and language, which are compromised at an initial stage. However, the necessity standardized means and validated for our middle, to show oneself a pressing subject. OBJECTIVE: To analyze the impact of the length of sentences in the abstraction of proverbs in the Screening Test for Alzheimer's Disease with Proverbs (TRDAP), healthy elderly and with Alzheimer's disease at early stage. METHOD: Survey document in the database, analyzing the responses of the elderly (abstract or concrete interpretation of proverbs), relating the length of sentences (sayings) of stage B of TRDAP with the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease and the interference of age and schooling. RESULTS: Healthy older people showed greater capacity for abstraction than those with AD. There was significant differences, in the sayings 1 (p = 0.033) and 2 (p = 0.001), corresponding to lower sentences, which did not occur with the proverb 3 (p = 0.090), with the biggest sentence. As for age no verified significant difference among the healthy and only saying 3 in AD patients, however schooling differenced the healthy. CONCLUSION: Elderly people with Alzheimer's disease at an initial stage have lower performance in the comprehension of ambiguous sentences, interpretation and abstraction of proverbs, corroborating with the data of the literature. The size of these sentences appears to be inversely proportional to the correctness of interpretation in elderly patients with and without AD. As lesser sentence, the better the capacity for abstraction.