SUBSCALE VALIDITY OF THE MATTIS DEMENTIA RATING-SCALE

The Mattis Dementia Rating Scale (DRS), a widely used dementia screeni ng instrument, generates five subscale scores in the areas of Attentio n (ATT), Initiation-Perseveration (IP), Construction (CN), Conceptuali zation (CON), and Memory (MEM). The present study sought to determine the criterion validity of the DRS subscales in a sample of 50 patients with Alzheimer's disease (25 with mild and 25 with moderate dementia) . Subject performance on the five DRS subscales was correlated with pe rformance on five well-validated neuropsychological criterion measures using Pearson r and stepwise regression. On a univariate level, each DRS subscale correlated most strongly with its assigned neuropsycholog ical criterion measure. On a multivariate level, each DRS subscale eme rged as the Step 1 predictor of its assigned criterion measure, with t he exception of DRS CN, which was the Step 2 predictor The results sug gested that overall the DRS subscales are valid measures of their resp ective constructs and have value for both clinical and research purpos es in mild and moderate dementia. (C) 1997 National Academy of Neurops ychology.