Validation of the Lille's Apathy Rating Scale in Very Mild to Moderate Dementia

Internal consistency for LARS (Cronbach's alpha) was 0.940. Test-retest intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was 0.940 and inter-rater ICC was 0.987. The correlation among LARS and NPI apathy scores (concurrent validity) was 0.834. Receiver operating characteristic analysis estimated an area under the curve of 0.987. The optimal cutoff point was −10. Although total LARS score was influenced by the presence of depression, this disorder was independent with respect to apathy. Conclusion: LARS is reliable and valid for detecting and quantifying apathy in patients with dementia, even in very early stages of the disease.