[Application of the Brazilian version of the CDR scale in samples of dementia patients]

The objective of the study was the analysis of agreement between the CDR scale with diagnostic criteria and mini mental state examination (MMSE), as well as correlation with Blessed scale, in a sample of Southern Brazilian patients.The CDR scale was cross-sectionally evaluated in 269 dementia patients' Alzheimer's disease (AD) vascular dementia, and questionable. The NINCDS-ADRDA criteria for probable AD and the NINDS-AIREN for probable vascular dementia were the gold standard. The MMSE, the Blessed scale, the Hachinski ischemic score, and a battery of cognitive tests were also applied.The agreement to gold standard was good (kappa=0.73), while to MMSE categorized was moderate (kappa=0.53). A significant correlation with the Blessed scale (r=0.96; p=0.001) was observed. Education and age were similar among CDR categories.The global score agreement of the CDR scale with the gold standard was good, and with the MMSE was moderate. We also observed face validity for dementia severity. No impact of education was observed upon CDR global scores.