Development and concurrent validation of a retrogenetic instrument for the assessment of activities of daily living: the functional assessment scale of the Barcelona test.

Abstract

Introduction: The assessment of activities of daily living (ADL) is considered essential in the evaluation of mild cognitive impairment (MCI), dementia and for its correct differential diagnosis. There are many scales for the functional assessment of these entities, although they are not exempt from drawbacks. The Barcelona Test ADL scale was published in 2019 with the aim of having a retrogenetic instrument that could overcome most of the problems encountered by its predecessors.

Method: A study was carried out to evaluate the properties of this scale. A total sample of 68 subjects (healthy controls, patients with amnestic-type MCI, and patients with Alzheimer's-type dementia) stratified according to the Global Cognitive Impairment Scale -Global Deterioration Scale- completed with the Functional Assessment Staging- Scale (GDS-FAST). The scores of each group on the scale, as well as on other cognitive tests, were studied to obtain the descriptive and internal consistency, concurrent validity, and discriminative capacity indices.

Results: The scale means differed significantly between all stratification groups. A high internal consistency index was obtained (Cronbach's α 0.975), excellent concurrent validity (Spearman's ρ of 0.95) and very good discriminative capacity, especially between the GDS-FAST 3 and 4 groups, and the GDS-FAST 4 and 5 groups.

Conclusions: The Barcelona Test ADL scale allows adequately evaluating the retrogenetic functional level of patients and discriminating between the different phases of the GDS-FAST, positioning itself as a very complete and useful scale in our sociocultural environment.