Link To “Self-Administered Gerocognitive Examination (SAGE) Administration and Scoring Instructions”

Today, I link to and copy the Self-Administered Gerocognitive Examination (SAGE) Administration and Scoring Instructions.

All that follows is from the above resource.

For Physicians

• How to administer the test

  The test is self-administered and can be taken at a person’s home, in a physician’s office or virtually anywhere. It requires no special equipment – only pen and paper.

  There are four forms of the SAGE test. Only one test form should be given. It does not matter which form is taken, as they are all interchangeable. Multiple forms are provided to reduce practice effect for patients who may take the test more than once and are useful when rapidly screening larger numbers of individuals at the same time.

  The steps to administer the test are as follows:

  Inform the examinee that there are four pages to complete.

  • Have the examinee fill out the test in ink without the assistance of others.
  • Calendars and clocks should not be available during the testing.
  • Do not answer specific questions. Just say, “Do the best that you can.”
  • There is no time limit. Average time to complete is 10 to 15 minutes.

   

How to interpret the results

Examinees who download SAGE from the Internet and take it at home are instructed to bring their completed test to their primary care physician. Scoring instructions and explanations for physicians are below:

Scoring Instructions: English US/UK, English NZ, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Croatian, French, German, Polish, Arabic

Scoring Explanation: English US/UK, English NZ, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Croatian, French, German, Polish, Arabic

The science behind the SAGE test

The Self-Administered Gerocognitive Exam (SAGE) is a brief self-administered cognitive screening instrument used to identify mild cognitive impairment (MCI) from any cause and early dementia. The questions are more difficult than other similar questionnaires, such as the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), to pick up those with very mild impairments. There is no fee to use SAGE for individual clinical use and noncommercial educational use.

Researchers at Ohio State evaluated study participants using SAGE and then evaluated the same subjects with other established assessment tools. The test has a sensitivity of 79 percent and a false positive rate of 5 percent in detecting cognitive impairment from normal subjects. Results were published in the January-March 2010 issue of Alzheimer’s Disease & Associated Disorders.

In another study, researchers at Ohio State performed an item analysis of the test questions. Results were published in the Winter 2014 issue of The Journal of Neuropsychiatry & Clinical Neurosciences.