The behavior changes associated wit...

The behavior changes associated with early dementia have not been well characterized. Better identification of behavior changes would help physicians decide which patients should be further evaluated for dementia. Ready and colleagues investigated sum of two units amnestic behavior changes (repetitive questioning and repetitive actions) to determine whether they are useful in screening for early dementia.

cogitation participants were patients from a hospital-based memory disorder clinic. bodily forms who knew the 75 studious mood patients well and accompanied them to the clinic were identified as informants. Informants were asked whether the patient asks the same question throughout and over (repetitive question item) and repeats the same action across and over (repetitive action item). Medical chart reviews provided patient data and diagnoses. The filled sample also included 25 superintend subjects; the remaining participants had no cognitive disorder, undetermined dementia, or definite dementia. The classification performance of the amnestic behavior items was compared with the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE)

Cutoffs were determined to arrive at the best sensitivity and specificity for distinguishing patients with dementia from command subjects. The repetitive question item exhibited a sensitivity of 088 a specificity of 072 and a classification accuracy of 82 percent The repetitive action item had a classification accuracy of 66 percent Combining data from the sum of two units behavioral questions resulted in a sensitivity of 097 a classification accuracy of 81 percent and a specificity of 061 The more liberal MMSE cutoff score (23) had a specificity of 097 and a classification accuracy of 75 percent on the other hand a sensitivity of only 063 With a more stringent cutoff score (26) sensitivity was 092 specificity was 086 and classification accuracy was 90 percent

The authors judge that repetitive questioning is public in early dementia and rare in cognitively intact persons. Repetitive actions note carefully to be associated with more advanced dementia and are therefore not likely to be useful in screening for early dementia. Either the repetitive questioning item or the repetitive questioning and repetitive action items combined may be an effective abbreviated screening approach for early dementia, and united that can readily be adapted for use by means of family members.

Ready RE et al. Amnestic behavior in dementia: symptoms to assist in early detection and diagnosis. J Am Geriatr Soc January 2003;51:32-7

COPYRIGHT 2003 American Academy of Family Physicians

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