COGNITIVE PERFORMANCE ON THE ALZHEIMERS-DISEASE ASSESSMENT SCALE - EFFECT OF EDUCATION

The cognitive subscale of the Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale (AD AS-Cog) is used to monitor disease progression and treatment efficacy in clinical trials of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Using data from a 12-w eek drug trial, we retrospectively studied the effect of education on ADAS-Cog performance in a group of 444 patients with AD. The effect of education was statistically significant on baseline ADAS-Cog total sc ares. This effect remained statistically significant after controlling for age, gender, and dementia severity. Education effects were also s tatistically significant at week 12 for ADAS-Cog total and 10 of 11 su bitem scores in 138 AD patients in the placebo arm of the trial. Post hoc analysis showed that non-high school graduates performed worse tha n those with greater educational levels across a broad range of cognit ive domains. Our results, in conjunction with reports linking lower ed ucational level with a higher risk for AD, suggest that educational le vel of patients be given consideration in the design and interpretatio n of cognitive tests in AD drug trials.