BACKGROUND Testamentary capacity (TC) is a legal construct about the ability to make or change a will. Although studies of financial and medical capacities have noted a strong association between capacity and cognition, no study has examined the cognitive correlates of TC in Alzheimer's disease (ad). METHODS Study participants were 22 cognitively healthy controls and 20 persons with mild to moderate ad who were administered a neuropsychological battery and the Testamentary Capacity Instrument (TCI), a new performance-based measure of TC. Both TCI Element and TCI Total scores were calculated. TCI Total scores were calculated for the purposes of expanding correlational analyses (i.e., Pearson's product-moment) and are not intended for forensic TC evaluations. Final predictors were identified using linear and logistic regression modeling. RESULTS All ad participants but one obtained TCI Totals that fell >2.5 standard deviations below the control group mean. Initial cognitive correlates of TCI performance were measures of general cognition, language, verbal memory, executive function, and processing speed. The four cognitive variables showing the highest t values and correlating with TCI Total score > 0.7 were entered into logistic and linear regression models. Final predictor models consisted of measures of verbal memory, executive function, and semantic knowledge and demonstrated shared variance of 0.71 (linear) and 0.82 (logistic). CONCLUSIONS A diagnosis of ad dementia is associated with clinical impairment in TC and associated cognitive abilities and indicates that a legal assessment of TC is warranted. Second, the results offer insight into the cognitive basis of TC in persons with Alzheimer's dementia.

中文翻译：

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阿尔茨海默氏痴呆症中遗嘱能力受损的认知相关性。

背景 遗嘱能力（TC）是关于制定或更改遗嘱的能力的法律概念。尽管对财务和医疗能力的研究已经注意到能力和认知之间存在很强的关联，但没有研究检验 TC 与阿尔茨海默病 (ad) 的认知相关性。方法 研究参与者包括 22 名认知健康的对照者和 20 名患有轻度至中度广告的人，他们接受了神经心理学电池和遗嘱能力测试仪 (TCI)（一种新的基于表现的 TC 测量方法）。计算 TCI 要素和 TCI 总分。TCI 总分的计算目的是为了扩展相关分析（即 Pearson 的乘积矩），而不是用于法医 TC 评估。使用线性和逻辑回归模型确定最终预测因子。结果 除一名广告参与者外，所有广告参与者的 TCI 总计均比对照组平均值低 2.5 个标准差以上。TCI 表现的初始认知相关性是一般认知、语言、言语记忆、执行功能和处理速度的测量。显示最高 t 值且与 TCI 总分 > 0.7 相关的四个认知变量被输入逻辑回归和线性回归模型。最终的预测模型由言语记忆、执行功能和语义知识的测量组成，并显示共享方差为 0.71（线性）和 0.82（逻辑）。结论 痴呆症的诊断与 TC 的临床损伤和相关认知能力相关，表明有必要对 TC 进行法律评估。第二，