Predicting dementia using socio-demographic characteristics and the Free and Cued Selective Reminding Test in the general population

BACKGROUND: Our study aimed to determine whether the consideration of socio-demographic features improves the prediction of Alzheimer’s dementia (AD) at 5 years when using the Free and Cued Selective Reminding Test (FCSRT) in the general older population. METHODS: Our analyses focused on 2558 subjects from the prospective Three-City Study, a cohort of community-dwelling individuals aged 65 years and over, with FCSRT scores. Four “residual scores” and “risk scores” were built that included the FCSRT scores and socio-demographic variables. The predictive performance of crude, residual and risk scores was analyzed by comparing the areas under the ROC curve (AUC). RESULTS: In total, 1750 subjects were seen 5 years after completing the FCSRT. AD was diagnosed in 116 of them. Compared with the crude free-recall score, the predictive performances of the residual score and of the risk score were not significantly improved (AUC: 0.83 vs 0.82 and 0.88 vs 0.89 respectively). CONCLUSION: Using socio-demographic features in addition to the FCSRT does not improve its predictive performance for dementia or AD. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13195-016-0230-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.