BACKGROUND Depression in old age is an important public health problem causing considerable morbidity and disability worldwide. There is a dearth of community studies from India investigating geriatric depression and its associated risk factors. This study aimed to establish the nature, prevalence and factors associated with geriatric depression in a rural south Indian community. METHODS We r...

INTRODUCTION There is a need for clinically administered instruments capable of detecting executive dysfunction in dementia. OBJECTIVE The translation and validation of Executive Battery 25 (EB25) and a short version for screening of executive dysfunction in dementia. METHODS The original battery was translated and validated using convergent and divergent correlation in 66 mild dementia pat...

BACKGROUND To identify the relationship between perceived environmental barriers and disability in community-dwelling elderly. METHODS Cross-sectional study in two community service centers in Tainan. We enrolled 200 community-dwelling residents, aged above 65 years, who had resided in the same community for at least 12 months. Basic activity of daily living (BADL) and instrumental activity o...

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of baseline socio-economic factors on functional status decline over a period of 3 years among a sample of Chinese older men and women, using the China Health and Nutrition Surveys of 1997 and 2000. In addition, the study tries to determine whether risk differentials by these socio-economic factors can be explained by other demographic, health-...

BACKGROUND The purpose of this study is to examine whether physical disability is associated with faster rate of decline in cognitive function. METHODS A longitudinal population-based cohort of 6,678 initially nondisabled older adults from a biracial urban community was interviewed at 3-year intervals from 1993 to 2012. Cognitive function was assessed using a standardized global cognitive sco...

stroke scales can be classified as clinicometric scales and functional impairment, handicap scales. all studies describing stroke scales were reviewed by internet searching engines with the final search performed on january 1, 2013. the following string of keywords was entered into search engines; stroke, scale, score and disability. despite advantages of modified national institute of health s...

The purpose of this study was to demonstrate the characteristics of the Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADL) ability, evaluated by the Assessment of Motor and Process Skills (AMPS), and everyday memory functions (the memory necessary for daily life), assessed by the Rivermead Behavioral Memory Test (RBMT) in elderly people with dementia compared with a community-dwelling group. We div...

OBJECTIVE to assess the validity of the Direct Assessment of Functional Status (DAFS) performance-based functional scale for the staging of dementia severity by comparing it with established clinical, functional and cognitive scales. PATIENTS AND METHODS 93 consecutive Alzheimer's disease patients underwent DAFS. Socio-demographic variables, cognitive status (Mini-Mental State Examination; MM...