The Diagnostic and Prognostic Value of Neuropsychological Assessment in Memory Clinic Patients.

<bold>Background: </bold>Neuropsychological testing has long been embedded in daily clinical practice at memory clinics but the added value of a complete neuropsychological assessment (NPA) to standard clinical evaluation is unknown.<bold>Objective: </bold>To evaluate the added diagnostic and prognostic value of NPA to clinical evaluation only in memory clinic patients.<bold>Methods: </bold>In 221 memory clinic patients of a prospective cohort study, clinical experts diagnosed clinical syndrome (subjective cognitive impairment (SCI), mild cognitive impairment (MCI), or dementia) and etiology (Alzheimer's disease (AD) or no AD), and provided a prognosis of disease course (decline or no decline) before and after results of NPA were made available. The reference standard was a panel consensus based on all clinical information at baseline and up to 2 follow-up assessments.<bold>Results: </bold>With NPA data available, clinicians changed their initial syndromal diagnosis in 22% of patients, and the etiological diagnosis as well as the prognosis in 15%. This led to an increase in correctly classified cases of 18% for syndromal diagnosis, 5% for etiological diagnosis, and 1% for prognosis. NPA data resulted in the largest improvement in patients initially classified as SCI (syndrome: 93.3% (n = 14) correctly reclassified, etiology: net reclassification improvement [NRI] = 0.61, prognosis: NRI = 0.13) or MCI (syndrome: 89.3% (n = 23) correctly reclassified, etiology: NRI = 0.17, prognosis: NRI = 0.14), while there was no improvement in patients with dementia (syndrome: 100% (n = 1) correctly reclassified, etiology: NRI = -0.05, prognosis: NRI = -0.06). Overall, inclusion of NPA in the diagnostic process increased confidence in all diagnoses with 6-7%.<bold>Conclusion: </bold>Administration of a complete NPA after standard clinical evaluation has added value for diagnosing cognitive syndrome and its underlying etiology in patients regarded as non-demented based on the first clinical impression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]