Is the Clock Drawing Test useful in the screening assessment of aged patients with chronic heart failure?

Abstract

Purpose: Cognitive impairment is one of the most common geriatric deficits in old patients with heart failure (HF), but there has been a lack of study on the utility of the Clock Drawing Test (CDT) when used with this group of patients. The aim of the study was to assess the usefulness of the CDT in the geriatric assessment of aged outpatients with chronic HF.

Patients and methods: A cross-sectional analysis of the results of the comprehensive geriatric assessment (CGA), including the CDT, of 92 aged outpatients with heart failure was conducted.

Results: We found a high prevalence of five examined geriatric problems. The majority of the patients presented signs of cognitive deterioration of different patterns and severity on the Clock Drawing Test. All the CDT scoring systems correlated significantly with the Mini-Mental Test Examination results.

Conclusions: It seems reasonable to perform the routine CGA with the CDT examination in all aged heart failure patients.

Keywords: Cognitive screening; Comprehensive geriatric assessment; Geriatric deficits; Shulman; Sunderland.