Validation of the ‘Pizza Test’
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Validation of the ‘Pizza Test’ : an alternative to the Clock Drawing Test for the assessment of cognition.
IRAS ID
146769
Contact name
Jonathan Evans
Contact email
Research summary
With increasing life expectancy, the prevalence of dementia was increasing worldwide. There was a need for assessment tools that were effective in identifying cognitive impairments as early as possible to aid timely diagnosis. In many developing countries, levels of education, and in particular, literacy, remained low. It was necessary therefore that cognitive assessment tools could be used with both literate and illiterate populations. A number of cognitive screening tools had been developed that had been shown to have good diagnostic accuracy in detecting dementia, though to date there had been very little work examining their use with illiterate populations. In several screening tools, including the widely used Addenbrookes Cognitive Examination, a clock drawing test (CDT) was included. CDTs were used to examine visuo-spatial perceptual and constructional skills. However CDTs require familiarity with writing numbers and have been shown to be affected by levels of education. It would therefore be useful to have an alternative to the CDT that would be sensitive to similar cognitive impairments, but did not require literacy skills. The study aimed to examine the validity of a task, the Pizza Test, designed to be a culturally and educationally unbiased alternative to the CDT.
The present study was a correlation study. Thirty older adults who were undergoing a cognitive screening within Greater Glasgow and Clyde Older Adults services would be included in the study. As part of routine assessment participants would undertake the ACE III. In addition, participants would complete the Pizza Test. The level of correlation between performance on the Pizza Test, the ACE III Clock Drawing Test and the ACE III total score would be examined.
REC name
North of Scotland Research Ethics Committee 1
REC reference
14/NS/0041
Date of REC Opinion
10 Mar 2014
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion