Quick dementia screening tool rivals 'gold standard'

  • 3-5 minute questionnaire can screen for presence and severity of dementia
  • its reliability is comparable to existing screening tools
  • its ease of use is better

A new questionnaire has been developed that very quickly determines whether or not a person has dementia and whether it's very mild, mild, moderate or severe. The 10-item questionnaire takes only 3-5 minutes and can be completed by a caregiver, friend or family member.

Testing on 239 individuals with various forms of dementia and 28 healthy controls has shown the results are comparable to the gold standard used presently, which takes several hours for an experienced professional to administer, interpret and score.

The "Quick Dementia Rating System" (QDRS) was developed by a leading neuroscientist, James E. Galvin, who has developed a number of dementia screening tools. The questionnaire covers:

  • memory and recall
  • orientation
  • decision-making and problem-solving abilities
  • activities outside the home
  • function at home and hobbies
  • toileting and personal hygiene
  • behavior and personality changes
  • language and communication abilities
  • mood
  • attention and concentration.

The total score is derived by summing up the 10 fields and each area has five possible answers increasing in severity of symptoms. The 10 areas capture the prominent symptoms of mild cognitive impairment, Alzheimer's disease, and non-Alzheimer's neurocognitive disorders including Lewy Body Dementia, frontotemporal degeneration, vascular dementia, chronic traumatic encephalopathy and depression.

The speed and ease of this questionnaire makes it a very useful initial screening tool. However, there are several caveats to its use now. At the moment, it has only been validated in the context of a memory disorders clinic, where prevalence of MCI and dementia is high. The next step would be to evaluate it in the context of settings where dementia prevalence is lower, such as 'ordinary' health clinics. Additionally, most of the study participants were Caucasian. Most importantly, inter-rater reliability has not yet been assessed (that is, the degree to which different scorers agree).

The Quick Dementia Rating System is copyrighted and permission to use this tool is required. QDRS is available at no cost to clinicians, researchers and not-for-profit organizations.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-08/fau-nrd081115.php

Reference: 

[3951] Galvin, J. E.
(2015).  The Quick Dementia Rating System (QDRS): A rapid dementia staging tool.
Alzheimer's & Dementia: Diagnosis, Assessment & Disease Monitoring. 1(2), 249 - 259.

Related News

Memory tests predict brain atrophy and Alzheimer's disease

A Canadian study involving 40 older adults (59-81), none of whom were aware of any major memory problems, has found that those scoring below 26 on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) dementia screening test also showed shrinking of the anterolateral

Following on from a previous study showing that such a virtual supermarket game administered by a trained professional can detect

After Alzheimer's disease, the next most common type of dementia is Lewy Body disease. Far less widely known, this form of dementia is often diagnosed quite late.

Data from 6257 older adults (aged 55-90) evaluated from 2005-2012 has revealed that concerns about memory should be taken seriously, with subjective complaints associated with a doubled risk of developing mild cognitive impairment or dementia, and subjective complaints supported by a loved on

Cognitive testing for dementia has a problem in that low scores on some tests may simply reflect a person's weakness in some cognitive areas, or the presence of a relatively benign form of mild cognitive impairment (one that is not going to progress to dementia).

Late-life depression is associated with an increased risk for all-cause dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, and, most predominantly,

New research suggests that reliance on the standard test Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale—Cognitive Behavior Section (ADAS-Cog) to measure cognitive changes in Alzheimer’s patients is a bad idea. The test is the most widely used measure of cognitive performance in clinical trials.

A small study shows how those on the road to Alzheimer’s show early semantic problems long before memory problems arise, and that such problems can affect daily life.

Dementia is a progressive illness, and its behavioral and psychological symptoms are, for caregivers, the most difficult symptoms to manage.

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.