Validation of the Telephone Interview for Cognitive Status (TICS) in Japanese

Background In recent years, the population of elderly people in Japan with dementia has increased. Detection of cognitive impairment in the early stages is important for adequate treatment, care, and prevention. Aim To investigate whether the reliability and validity of the instrument would carry over to a different population and language before using it for population‐based epidemiological studies. Methods We studied 135 subjects, 49 patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and 86 healthy controls (CTL) using the Telephone Interview for Cognitive Status (TICS) and developed the Japanese version of the TICS (TICS‐J). We also evaluated combination of another telephone battery, the Category Fluency Test (CF). Results The sensitivity and specificity of the TICS‐J to differentiate AD patients from CTL was 98.0% and 90.7%, respectively. Pearson's correlation coefficient for the TICS‐J and Mini‐Mental State Examination (MMSE) was 0.858 (p