Towards the neuropsychological diagnosis of alzheimer's disease: A hybrid model in decision making

Abstract

Dementias are syndromes described by a decline in memory and other neuropsychological changes especially occurring in the elderly and increasing exponentially in function of age. Due to this fact and the therapeutical limitations in the most advanced stage of the disease, diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease is extremely important and it can provide better life conditions to patients and their families. This work presents a hybrid model, combining Influence Diagrams and the Multicriteria Method, for aiding to discover, from a battery of tests, which are the most attractive questions, in relation to the stages of CDR (Clinical Dementia Rating) in decision making for the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease. This disease is the most common dementia. Influence Diagram is implemented using GeNie tool. Next, the judgment matrixes are constructed to obtain cardinal value scales which are implemented through MACBETH Multicriteria Methodology. The modeling and evaluation processes were carried out through a battery of standardized assessments for the evaluation of cases with Alzheimer's disease developed by Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer's disease (CERAD). © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.