Brief questionnaire for dementia progression validated

August, 2012

A new tool that should help in the managing of dementia symptoms is designed to be easily and quickly employed, and is a reliable and sensitive measure of dementia change (over 3 months).

Dementia is a progressive illness, and its behavioral and psychological symptoms are, for caregivers, the most difficult symptoms to manage. While recent research has demonstrated how collaborative care can reduce these symptoms and reduce stress for caregivers, the model requires continuous monitoring of the symptoms. What’s needed is a less arduous way of monitoring changes in symptoms.

A new questionnaire for assessing dementia progression has now been validated. The Healthy Aging Brain Care Monitor is simple, user-friendly and sensitive to change in symptoms. Its 31 items cover cognitive, functional, and behavioral and psychological symptoms of the patient, as well as caregiver quality of life, and takes about six minutes for a caregiver to complete.

Some of the specific items that may be of interest include:

  • Repeating the same things over and over
  • Forgetting the correct month or year
  • Handling finances
  • Planning, preparing or serving meals
  • Learning to use a tool, appliance, or gadget

You can see the full questionnaire at http://www.indydiscoverynetwork.org/HealthyAgingBrainCareMonitor.html. The HABC Monitor and scoring rules are available without charge.

The four factors (cognitive; functional; behavioral and psychological; caregiver quality of life) were all significantly correlated, with one exception: cognitive and caregiver quality of life.

The validating study involved 171 caregivers, of whom 52% were the children of the patients, 34% were spouses, 6% were siblings, and 4% were grandchildren. The participant group included 61% identifying as white, 38% African-American, and 1% other. Only 1% was Hispanic.

The study found good internal consistency (0.73–0.92); good correlations with the longer and more detailed Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI) total score and NPI caregiver distress score; and greater sensitivity to three-month change compared with NPI “reliable change” groups.

The value of this new clinical tool lies in its brevity. Described as a ‘blood pressure cuff’ for dementia symptoms, the one-page questionnaire is designed to fit into a health visit easily.

The researchers note some caveats, including the fact that it was validated in a memory care practice setting and not yet in a primary care setting, and (more importantly) only over a three-month period. Future projects will assess its sensitivity to change over longer periods, and in primary care.

Reference: 

Related News

A study involving 254 people with dementia living at home has found that 99% of people with dementia and 97% of their caregivers had one or more unmet needs, 90% of which were safety-related.

A new U.S. study suggests that Alzheimer's disease and other dementias are markedly under-reported on death certificates and medical records. Death certificates tend to only provide an immediate cause, such as pneumonia, and don’t mention the underlying condition that provoked it.

It’s often argued that telling people that they carry genes increasing their risk of Alzheimer’s will simply upset them to no purpose. A new study challenges that idea.

11 new genetic susceptibility factors for Alzheimer’s identified

Understanding a protein's role in familial Alzheimer's disease

Analysis of data from 237 patients with mild cognitive impairment (mean age 79.9) has found that, compared to those carrying the ‘normal’ ApoE3 gene (the most common variant of the ApoE gene), the ApoE4 carriers showed markedly greater rates of shrinkage in 13 of 15 brain regions thought to be k

Analysis of data from more than 8,000 people, most of them older than 60, has revealed that, among the 5,000 people initially tested cognitively normal, carrying one copy of the “Alzheimer’s gene” (ApoE4) only slightly increased men’s risk of developing

Analysis of 700 subjects from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative has revealed a genetic mutation (rs4728029) that’s associated with people who develop Alzheimer’s pathology but don’t show clinical symptoms in their lifetime.

Analysis of brain scans and cognitive scores of 64 older adults from the NIA's Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging (average age 76) has found that, between the most cognitively stable and the most declining (over a 12-year period), there was no significant difference in the total amount of amy

A pilot study involving 94 older adults, of whom 18 had Alzheimer’s, 24 had

Pages

Subscribe to Latest newsSubscribe to Latest newsSubscribe to Latest health newsSubscribe to Latest news
Error | About memory

Error

The website encountered an unexpected error. Please try again later.