The Self-Administered Gerocognitive Exam, known as SAGE, is a brief, pen-and-paper cognitive assessment tool designed to detect the early signs of cognitive, memory, or thinking impairments. The test evaluates your thinking abilities. This can help your doctors understand how well your brain is functioning.
SAGE is a brief self-administered cognitive screening instrument to identify Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) and early dementia. Average time to complete the test is 15 minutes. The maximum score is 22. A score of 17 and above is considered normal.
Mini-Mental Status Examination (MMSE)
The MMSE is the most common test for the screening of dementia. It assesses skills such as reading, writing, orientation and short-term memory.
Introduction: The five-word test (5WT) is a serial verbal memory test with semantic cuing. It is proposed to rapidly evaluate memory of aging people and has previously shown its sensitivity and its specificity in identifying patients with AD.
The Mini-Cog test.
A third test, known as the Mini-Cog, takes 2 to 4 minutes to administer and involves asking patients to recall three words after drawing a picture of a clock. If a patient shows no difficulties recalling the words, it is inferred that he or she does not have dementia.
The five-minute cognitive test (FCT) was designed to capture deficits in five domains of cognitive abilities, including episodic memory, language fluency, time orientation, visuospatial function, and executive function.
Background: The seven minute screen (7MS) is a compilation of the temporal orientation test, enhanced cued recall, clock drawing, and verbal fluency. It has been shown to be useful for detecting Alzheimer's disease in a population of patients with memory complaints.
The Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) is a tool that helps healthcare professionals detect mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease in people. A 2021 study found that it is a better measure of cognitive function than the MMSE. It consists of 30 questions that take 10–12 minutes to accomplish.
There is no answer sheet provided here for you to score yourself because there are multiple correct answers to many of the questions on the test. SAGE should be scored by your physician. If you don't have a primary care physician, view our list of primary care providers accepting new patients.
Accuracy. Studies have found that SAGE is an accurate indicator of whether someone has dementia. When hundreds of people aged 60 and up were administered the SAGE test, it predicted whether or not they developed dementia with about 95-percent accuracy.
It will usually take about 10 to 15 minutes but there's no set time limit. It's important not to cheat in order to get a better assessment. In some cases, you might choose to take the test at your doctor's office where it can be evaluated right away.
Dementia affects about 5 million adults over 65 years old in the United States. A new test you can take at home may help detect early symptoms of the disease. The test, known as SAGE, can be taken online or downloaded and completed at your doctor's office.
The 3 D's: Delirium, Depression & Dementia.
A score of 25 or higher is classed as normal. If the score is below 24, the result is usually considered to be abnormal, indicating possible cognitive impairment.
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
Repeat scans can show how a person's brain changes over time. Evidence of shrinkage may support a diagnosis of Alzheimer's or another neurodegenerative dementia but cannot indicate a specific diagnosis. MRI also provides a detailed picture of brain blood vessels.
The clock-drawing test is a quick way to screen for early dementia, including Alzheimer's disease. It involves drawing a clock on a piece of paper with numbers, clock hands, and a specific time. The inability to do so is a strong indication of mental decline.
A 2019 study published in Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, showed among 165 participants (45 with diagnosed neurodegenerative disease, 120 controls) a supine sleep position (on back, head at body level) for more than 2 hours per night increased the risk of dementia by almost four times (3.7 times greater).
The Mini–Mental State Examination (MMSE) or Folstein test is a 30-point questionnaire that is used extensively in clinical and research settings to measure cognitive impairment. It is commonly used in medicine and allied health to screen for dementia.
Most importantly, Hall says, a health care professional is there to emphasize that a negative result on a memory test is not an Alzheimer's disease diagnosis but simply means the individual should to go to a doctor for follow-up tests.
A list of ten unrelated words are orally presented one by one, and subjects are instructed to recall as many items as possible immediately after their presentation (immediate free recall, the traditional span task) and after a predetermined time, in general 5 to 10 minutes (delayed free recall).
Brain scans.
These tests can identify strokes, tumors, and other problems that can cause dementia. Scans also identify changes in the brain's structure and function. The most common scans are: Computed tomography (CT), which uses X-rays to produce images of the brain and other organs.