A normative study of the Czech Edinburgh Cognitive and Behavioural ALS Screen (ECAS): a brief report

Clin Neuropsychol. 2021 Dec;35(sup1):S65-S72. doi: 10.1080/13854046.2021.1978553. Epub 2021 Sep 18.

Abstract

Edinburgh Cognitive and Behavioural ALS Screen (ECAS) is a brief, standardized assessment of cognitiveimpairment inamyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

Objective: We aimed to createa normative dataset for the ECAS Czech version (ECAS-CZ) in order to make the assessment applicable for clinical settings.

Method: Included were 102 healthy participants (mean age: 54.92 ± 14.55; education: 14.52 ± 2.44; 54:48 females/males) that fulfilled rigorous exclusion criteria and controlled for depressive symptoms.

Results: The internal consistency of ECAS-CZ was acceptable (Cronbach's α = .69). We found medium correlations (rho ≈ .5) of age and education with ECAS-CZ Total score but not with gender. Cut-offs with -2 SD's threshold are presented for the differentiation of cognitive impairment. We report percentile values for ECAS-CZ Total including all subscales.

Conclusion: We provide normative values for ECAS-CZ that are well suited for the detection of cognitive impairment in clinical settings especially for patients with ALS.Supplemental data for this article is available online at https://doi.org/10.1080/13854046.2021.1978553 .

Keywords: Cognition; ECAS; behaviour; normative data; screen.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Aged
  • Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis* / diagnosis
  • Cognition
  • Cognition Disorders* / diagnosis
  • Cognition Disorders* / etiology
  • Cognitive Dysfunction*
  • Czech Republic
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Neuropsychological Tests