Review of outcome measurement instruments in Alzheimer's disease drug trials: Psychometric properties of behavior and mood scales

This article reviews the reliability and validity of eight scales for behav ior and mood problems that were identified in a comparative analysis of Alz heimer's disease (AD) drug trials. The scales are the Brief Psychiatric Rat ing Scale, the Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale-noncognitive, the Relat ive's Assessment of Global Symptomatology, the Consortium to Establish a Re gistry for Alzheimer's Disease-Behavior Rating Scale for Dementia, the Deme ntia Behavior Disturbance scale, the Neuropsychiatric Inventory, and two sc ales for depressive symptoms, the Cornell Scale for Depression in Dementia and the Dementia Mood Assessment Scale. This article also examines methodol ogical limitations in the way the published literature has assessed the psy chometric properties of these scales. The aim is to help clinicians and pot ential trial investigators select appropriate measurement instruments with which to assess behavior and mood problems in AD and to assist AD researche rs in the evaluation of the psychometric properties of such scales.