Clinical experience with the nosger (nurses' observation scale for geriatric patients): Tentative normative data and sensitivity to change
✍ Scribed by Lothar Tremmel; René Spiegel
- Book ID
- 102847200
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1993
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 580 KB
- Volume
- 8
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0885-6230
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
The NOSGER is an assessment instrument used in psychogeriatrics, consisting of 30 observable items of behaviour and measuring impairments in six areas: memory, IADL (instrumental activities of daily living), ADL (activities of daily living), mood, social behaviour and disturbing behaviour. Data collected in the course of validation studies were reanalysed to calculate tentative normative scores and to assess the scale's sensitivity to change. Cutoff scores for elderly normal subjects living in the community are estimated around 10 for ADL and around 15 for memory and IADL disturbances. Cutoff values for the three non-cognitive NOSGER dimensions are not yet available.
Sensitivity to change (over 3 months) was shown to be relatively highest for memory, IADL and disturbing behaviour and lowest for ADL in a group of patients with mild to moderate dementia. Correlations between NOSGER change scores and physicians' overall assessments of treatment efficacy in a drug study were highest for social behaviour, IADL and mood, suggesting that non-cognitive factors were at least as important to determine doctors' assessments of change as changes in cognitive areas of behaviour. Further studies are on their way to supplement the present data set.