Diagnostic Accuracy of 10/66 Dementia Protocol in Fijian-Indian Elders Living in New Zealand

• Main Authors: Adrian Martinez-Ruiz, Rita Krishnamurthi, Ekta Singh Dahiya, Reshmi Rai-Bala, Sanjalin Naicker, Susan Yates, Claudia Rivera Rodriguez, Gary Cheung, Makarena Dudley, Ngaire Kerse, Sarah Cullum
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-05-01
• Series: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
• Subjects: dementia; Alzheimer’s diseases; dementia prevalence; 10/66 dementia protocol; Fijian-Indian community
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/9/4870
• ISSN: 1661-7827; 1660-4601

The 10/66 dementia protocol was developed as a language and culture-fair instrument to estimate the prevalence of dementia in non-English speaking communities. The aim of this study was to validate the 10/66 dementia protocol in elders of Indian ethnicity born in the Fiji Islands (Fijian-Indian) living in New Zealand. To our knowledge, this is the first time a dementia diagnostic tool has been evaluated in the Fijian-Indian population in New Zealand. We translated and adapted the 10/66 dementia protocol for use in in Fijian-Indian people. Individuals (age ≥ 65) who self-identified as Fijian-Indian and had either been assessed for dementia at a local memory service (13 cases, eight controls) or had participated in a concurrent dementia prevalence feasibility study (eight controls) participated. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and Youden’s index were obtained by comparing the 10/66 diagnosis and its sub-components against the clinical diagnosis (reference standard). The 10/66 diagnosis had a sensitivity of 92.3% (95% CI 70.3–99.5), specificity of 93.8% (95% CI 75.3–99.6), positive predictive value of 92.3% (95% CI 70.3–99.5), and negative predictive value of 93.8% (95% CI 75.3–99.6). The study results show that the Fijian-Indian 10/66 dementia protocol has adequate discriminatory abilities to diagnose dementia in our sample. This instrument would be suitable for future dementia population-based studies in the Fijian-Indian population living in Aotearoa/New Zealand or the Fiji-Islands.