Can an informant questionnaire be used to predict the development of dementia in medical inpatients?
✍ Scribed by Beverley Louis; Daniel Harwood; Tony Hope; Robin Jacoby
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1999
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 76 KB
- Volume
- 14
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0885-6230
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Objective. To determine whether elderly medical inpatients without dementia who score 43.31 on the short form of the Informant Questionnaire on Cognitive Decline in the Elderly (IQCODE) are at an increased risk of developing dementia.
Design/participants. Twenty-nine patients with an IQCODE score of 43.31 without dementia and 29 age-and sexmatched controls, from an original sample of 201 medical inpatients over 65, were examined 17±24 months after initial assessment.
Setting. Interviews took place in patients' homes, but all subjects had been recruited while medical inpatients in a general hospital 17±24 months previously.
Measures. The IQCODE and clinical interview to make DSM-III-R diagnosis of dementia.
Results. Ten of the study group and one control had developed dementia since the original assessment.
Conclusions. Non-demented elderly medical inpatients with an admission IQCODE score of 43.31 are more likely to develop dementia than those with an IQCODE score of 53.31. The IQCODE is a sensitive tool for detecting early dementia.