Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-31T20:26:46.899Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Assessment of Cognitive Decline in the Elderly by Informant Interview

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

A. F. Jorm  and
A. E. Korten
A. F. Jorm*
Affiliation:
National Health and Medical Research Council Social Psychiatry Research Unit. The Australian National University, GPO Box 4, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia
A. E. Korten
Affiliation:
National Health and Medical Research Council Social Psychiatry Research Unit. The Australian National University, GPO Box 4, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia
*
∗Correspondence
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Cognitive decline in a sample of 64 elderly people was assessed by a standardised informant interview dealing with changes in memory and intelligence which had taken place in the previous 10 years. Scores from the interview were found to correlate (r=0.74) with the Mini-Mental State Examination. Moreover, the informant interview was found to be less affected by pre-morbid ability than the MMSE. Direct assessment of decline by informants may be a solution to the problem of contamination by pre-morbid ability which affects traditional cognitive screening instruments.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 152 , Issue 2 , February 1988 , pp. 209 - 213
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1988 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

American Psychiatric Association (1980) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd edn) (DSM-III). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.Google Scholar
Anthony, J. C., le Resche, L., Niaz, U., Von Korff, M. R. & Folstein, M. F. (1982) Limits of the ‘Mini-Mental State’ as a screening test for dementia and delirium among hospital patients. Psychological Medicine, 12, 397–408.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Barclay, L. L., Zemcov, A., Blass, J. P. & McDowell, F. H. (1985) Factors associated with duration of survival in Alzheimer's disease. Biological Psychiatry, 20, 86–93.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bergmann, K., Kay, D. W. K., Foster, E. M., McKechnie, A. A. & Roth, M. (1971) A follow-up study of randomly selected community residents to assess the effects of chronic brain syndrome and cerebrovascular disease. Excerpta Medico International Congress Series, No. 274, 856–865.Google Scholar
Cohen, J. & Cohen, P. (1975) Applied Multiple Regression/Correlation Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Diesfeldt, H. F. A., Van Houte, L. R. & Moerkens, R. M. (1986) Duration of survival in senile dementia. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 73, 366–371.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Filley, C. M., Brownell, H. H. & Albert, M. L. (1985) Education provides no protection against Alzheimer's disease. Neurology, 12, 1781–1784.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Folstein, M. F., Folstein, S. E. & McHugh, P. R. (1975) ‘Mini-Mental State’: a practical method for grading the cognitive state of patients for the clinician. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 12, 189–198.Google Scholar
Gurland, B. J. (1981) The borderlands of dementia: the influence of sociocultural characteristics on rates of dementia occurring in the senium. In Clinical Aspects of Alzheimer's Disease and Senile Dementia (eds Miller, N. E. & Cohen, G. D.) (Ageing, Vol. 15). New York: Raven Press.Google Scholar
Hart, S., Smith, C. M. & Swash, M. (1986) Assessing intellectual deterioration. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 25, 119–124.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Henderson, A. S. (1986) The epidemiology of Alzheimer's disease. British Medical Bulletin, 42, 3–10.Google Scholar
Henderson, A. S. & Huppert, F. A. (1984) The problem of mild dementia. Psychological Medicine, 14, 5–11.Google Scholar
Hinton, D. R., Sadun, A. A., Blanks, J. C. & Miller, C. A. (1986) Optic-nerve degeneration in Alzheimer's disease. New England Journal of Medicine, 315, 485–487.Google Scholar
Holzer, C. E., Tischler, G. L., Leaf, P. J. & Myers, J. K. (1984) An epidemiologic assessment of cognitive impairment in a community population. Research in Community and Mental Health, 4, 3–32.Google Scholar
Knight, R. G. & Godfrey, H. P. D. (1985) The assessment of memory impairment: the relationship between different methods of evaluating dysmnesic deficits. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 24, 25–31.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Miller, E. (1981) The differential psychological evaluation. In Clinical Aspects of Alzheimer's Disease and Senile Dementia (eds Miller, N. E. & Cohen, G. D.) (Ageing, Vol. 15). New York: Raven Press.Google Scholar
Nelson, H. E. & McKenna, P. (1975) The use of current reading ability in the assessment of dementia. British Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 14, 259–267.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nelson, H. E. & O'Connell, A. (1978) Dementia: the estimation of premorbid intelligence levels using the New Adult Reading Test. Cortex, 14, 234–244.Google Scholar
O'Carroll, R. E. & Gilleard, C. J. (1986) Estimation of premorbid intelligence in dementia. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 25, 157–158.Google Scholar
Ruddle, H. V. & Bradshaw, C. M. (1982) On the estimation of premorbid intellectual functioning: validation of Nelson & McKenna's formula, and some new normative data. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 21, 159–165.Google Scholar
Steiger, J. H. (1980) Tests for comparing elements of a correlation matrix. Psychological Bulletin, 87, 245–251.Google Scholar
Sunderland, A., Harris, J. E. & Baddeley, A. D. (1984) Assessing everyday memory after severe head injury. In Everyday Memory, Actions and Absent-Mindedness (eds Harris, J. E. & Morris, P. E.). London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Sunderland, A., Watt, K., Baddeley, A. D. & Harris, J. E. (1986) Subjective memory assessment and test performance in elderly adults. Journal of Gerontology, 41, 376–384.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wilson, R. S., Rosenbaum, G. & Brown, G. (1979) The problem of premorbid intelligence in neuropsychological assessment. Journal of Clinical Neuropsychology, 1, 49–53.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.