The demand for simple, accurate and time-efficient screens to detect cognitive decline at point-of-care is increasing. Sorting tests are often used to detect the ‘executive’ deficits that are commonly associated with behavioural-variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), but their potential for use as a cognitive screen with older adults is unclear. A comprehensive search of four databases identified 142 studies that compared the sorting test performance (e.g. WCST, DKEFS-ST) of adults with a common neurodegenerative disorder (e.g. Alzheimer’s disease, vascular dementia, bvFTD, Parkinson’s disease) and cognitively-healthy controls. Hedges’ g effect sizes were used to compare the groups on five common test scores (Category, Total, Perseveration, Error, Description). The neurodegenerative disorders (combined) showed large deficits on all scores (g -1.0 to -1.3), with dementia (combined subtypes) performing more poorly (g -1.2 to -2.1), although bvFTD was not disproportionately worse than the other dementias. Overall, sorting tests detected the cognitive impairments caused by common neurodegenerative disorders, especially dementia, highlighting their potential suitability as a cognitive screen for older adults.

对于简单，准确和省时的屏幕以检测即时诊断能力下降的需求正在增加。排序测试通常用于检测通常与行为变异性额颞痴呆（bvFTD）相关的“执行性”缺陷，但尚不清楚它们是否可用于老年人的认知筛查。对四个数据库的全面搜索确定了142项研究，这些研究比较了具有常见神经退行性疾病（例如阿尔茨海默氏病，血管性痴呆，bvFTD，帕金森氏病）和认知健康对照的成年人的分类测试表现（例如WCST，DKEFS-ST）。套期摹效果大小用于比较五个常见测试分数（类别，总计，坚持，错误，描述）上的组。神经退行性疾病（合并）在所有评分（g -1.0至-1.3）上均表现出较大的缺陷，痴呆（合并亚型）的表现较差（g -1.2至-2.1），尽管bvFTD并没有比其他痴呆症严重得多。总体而言，分类测试检测到由常见的神经退行性疾病（尤其是痴呆症）引起的认知障碍，突显了它们作为老年人认知筛查的潜在适用性。