In total ECAS consists of 15 individual tasks (naming, comprehension, and so forth; s. Table 1), which rely on standard procedures and tests used in neuropsychology (Abrahams et al., 2013). These 16 individual tasks correlate with certain cognitive functions which are split up into 5 different subdomains (language, verbal fluency, executive, memory and visuospatial; s. Table 2). These subdomains comprise ALS-specific (language, verbal fluency and further executive functions; s. Table 2) and non-specific functions (memory and visuospatial; s. Table 2), for which scores can be identified, respectively. The ECAS-total score is the sum of scores of all 16 individual tasks. It is a global measure for the evaluation of cognitive impairments in ALS patients.

Table 1: 16 single tasks of the ECAS can be assigned to different cognitive functions, which are subsumed in sub domains.



Table 2: ALS specific and non ALS specific functions are subsumed under the ECAS total score