Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Timely detection and tracking of Alzheimer's disease (AD) -related cognitive decline has become a public health priority. We investigated whether the NIH Toolbox for Assessment of Neurological and Behavioral Function-Cognition Battery (NIHTB-CB) detects AD-related cognitive decline.
METHODS: N = 171 participants (age 76.5 ± 8; 53% female, 34% Aβ-positive) from the ARMADA study completed the NIHTB-CB at baseline, 12 months, and 24 months. Linear mixed-effect models correcting for demographics were used to examine cross-sectional and longitudinal NIHTB-CB scores in individuals across the clinical AD spectrum.
RESULTS: Compared to Aβ-negative healthy controls, Aβ-positive individuals with amnestic MCI or mild AD performed worse on all NIHTB-CB measures and showed an accelerated decline in processing speed, working memory, and auditory word comprehension tests.
DISCUSSION: These findings support the use of the NIHTB-CB in early AD, but also imply that the optimal NIHTB-CB composite score to detect change over time may differ across clinical stages of AD. Future directions include replication of these findings in larger and more demographically diverse samples.
HIGHLIGHTS: We examined NIH Toolbox-Cognition Battery scores across the clinical AD spectrum.All NIH Toolbox tests detected cross-sectional cognitive impairment in MCI-to-mild AD.Three NIH Toolbox tests captured further decline over time in MCI-to-mild AD.The NIH Toolbox can facilitate timely detection of AD-related cognitive decline.
Original language | English |
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Article number | e70046 |
Pages (from-to) | e70046 |
Journal | Alzheimer's & Dementia: Diagnosis, Assessment & Disease Monitoring |
Volume | 17 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2025 |