BACKGROUND: Alzheimer's disease dementia (ADD) has become an important health problem in the world. Visuospatial deficits are considered to be an early symptom besides memory disorder.

OBJECTIVES: The gesture imitation test was devised to detect ADD and amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI).

METHODS: A total of 117 patients with ADD, 118 with aMCI, and 95 normal controls were included in this study. All participants were administered our gesture imitation test, the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), the Clock Drawing Test (CDT), and the Clinical Dementia Rating Scale (CDR).

RESULTS: Patients with ADD performed worse than normal controls on global scores and had a lower success rate on every item (p 

CONCLUSIONS: The gesture imitation test is an easy, rapid tool for detecting ADD, and is suitable for the patients suspected of mild ADD and aMCI in outpatient clinics.