Articles: dementia.
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J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiatr. · Jul 1995
Frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimer's disease: retrospective differentiation using information from informants.
The study examined the feasibility of differentiating frontotemporal dementia from Alzheimer's disease on the basis of retrospective historical information obtained from relatives of patients. A structured questionnaire was devised of patients' symptoms, with emphasis on those cognitive and neuropsychiatric features found in earlier prospective clinical studies to distinguish the two conditions. The questionnaire was given to close relatives of deceased patients in whom the diagnosis of non-Alzheimer's frontotemporal degeneration of Alzheimer's disease had been verified at necropsy. ⋯ A scoring system separated out individual patients with frontotemporal dementia from those with Alzheimer's disease. It is concluded that it is possible to obtain useful information about the precise pattern of dementia from informants even many years after the patient's death. The questionnaire provides the foundation of a diagnostic instrument for use in family history studies of dementia.
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Comparative Study
The prevalence of dementia and depression in the elderly community in a southern European population. The Zaragoza study.
Provocative international disparities reported in the prevalence rates of dementia and depression require further investigation. This is the first psychiatric study, to the best of our knowledge, about the prevalence of DSM-III-R dementing and depressive disorders and their relationships in a representative, stratified community sample of the elderly in both a Spanish-speaking country and southern Europe. ⋯ Among the elderly, the prevalence of Alzheimer's disease and multi-infarct dementia, as opposed to depression, increases steeply with age. The overlap found between dementia and depression may have nosological implications. There could be an effect of lower education levels on psychiatric morbidity, particularly on depression.
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Aust N Z J Ment Health Nurs · Jun 1995
Coping strategies of caregivers of family members with dementia.
Data derived from a national sample of 89 caregivers of non-institutionalized family members with dementia were examined in order to identify the specific coping strategies caregivers utilized and whether the identified strategies were associated with negative or positive outcomes. Results from this study indicated that caregivers predominantly used problem-focused strategies. Further analysis demonstrated that employing more positive coping strategies did not necessarily result in a reduced sense of burden.
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Tohoku J. Exp. Med. · Jun 1995
Dementia and physical disability as competing risks for mortality in a community-based sample of the elderly Japanese.
To examine whether an excess mortality due to dementia is independent of coexisting physical disability, a probability-sample of the non-institutionalized elderly (n = 3,308) living in Sendai City, Japan was followed between 1988 and 1991. Of those, 128 were diagnosed as dementia in 1988 by psychiatrists, using Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Third Edition-Revised as a diagnostic standard. Information on the ability to perform activities of daily living (ADL) was collected by self-report of the study subjects in 1988 baseline survey. ⋯ The results indicated that the relation between dementia and mortality was two-fold, depending upon the physical functions. Dementia increased the risk for mortality among those without ADL disability, but it did not so among those with ADL disability, rather ADL function was a stronger predictor for mortality among the latter individuals. Prevention and treatment of physical disability would be important for improving the survival of the demented people.