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Objectives: In addition to neuropsychological difficulties, patients with cerebral small vessel disease (SVD) can have reduced activities of daily living and a poorer quality of life compared to healthy adults. The Brief Memory and Executive Test (BMET), is a cognitive screening tool designed to be sensitive to the neuropsychological profile of patients with SVD. While the BMET is sensitive to the cognitive consequences of SVD, it is unclear how well scores on this measure relate to functional outcomes. The aims of this study are to investigate the relationship between scores on the BMET and functional outcomes (activities of daily living and quality of life) in SVD, and to compare this with other commonly used cognitive screening tools. Methods: This study included 184 participants with SVD (mean age=63.2; SD=9.9) and 299 healthy controls (mean age=62.4; SD=13.8) who were tested using the BMET, Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), Stroke Specific - Quality of Life Scale (SS-QoL), Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS), and measures of both instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) and basic activities of daily living (BADL). Results: After controlling for covariates the scores on the BMET, but not the MoCA or MMSE, were significantly related to poorer IADL and quality of life in the SVD group. In addition to the BMET scores, symptoms of depression were found to be significant associated with functional outcome. Conclusion: These results support the clinical utility of using of the BMET, in combination with a standardized depression questionnaire, during the early assessment of patients with SVD. (JINS, 2016, 22, 1–9)

Patterns of verbal fluency deficits have been explored across different neurodegenerative disorders. This study sought to investigate the specific pattern of verbal fluency performance in cerebral small vessel disease (SVD), which is the most common cause of vascular cognitive impairment, and compare this with Alzheimer's disease (AD). Participants with SVD (n = 45), AD (n = 24) and healthy controls (n = 80) completed assessments of semantic and phonemic fluency. Mixed-model analyses of covariance were used to compare performance on the different fluency tasks between the groups, and a discriminant function analysis was conducted to examine group differentiation. The SVD group was impaired in both fluency tasks when compared to the controls. In contrast, the AD group displayed impairment in semantic fluency only. Discriminant function analysis revealed that fluency scores correctly classified 80% of SVD patients and 92% of AD patients. The pattern of performance observed in the SVD group may reflect deficits in executive function and processing speed impacting equivalently on semantic and phonemic fluency. The differences between the SVD and AD groups highlighted in this study may be useful for distinguishing between these conditions. (JINS, 2014, 20, 1–9)