Japanese version of the Frontal Assessment Battery for dementia

Abstract The Frontal Assessment Battery (FAB) was developed as a short bedside cognitive and behavioral battery to assess frontal lobe functions. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the validity and reliability of a Japanese version of the FAB to measure cognitive dysfunction in patients with dementia. We studied 25 normal subjects and 105 patients with Alzheimer's disease, n = 58, vascular dementia, n = 24, and frontotemporal dementia, n = 23. The neuropsychological test battery included the FAB, the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE), a memory test, and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (Keio version: KWCST). Patients with dementia performed significantly more poorly than controls on all tests. The FAB showed a good correlation with other cognitive measures: MMSE ( r = 0.725), KWCST number of categories completed ( r = 0.654), KWCST number of perseveration errors ( r = − 0.484), and memory test ( r = 0.643). Patients with more severe Clinical Dementia Rating scores showed lower scores on the FAB. There was good inter-rater reliability ( r = 0.972), test–retest reliability ( r = 0.769), and internal consistency (Cronbach's coefficient alpha = 0.715). The FAB is a valid and reliable screening test to evaluate cognitive dysfunction among patients with dementia.