Among elderly Catholic sisters who lived in one convent, ate from the same kitchen, and were highly comparable for a wide range of environmental and lifestyle factors, low serum folate was strongly associated with atrophy of the cerebral cortex. Definitive evidence for this relation and its temporal sequence awaits the findings of other studies.
This article describes the development and testing of the Cognitively Impaired Life Quality (CILQ) Scale to quantify differences in quality of life of severely cognitively impaired elderly patients as perceived by nursing caregivers. Two studies are reported. In study 1, focus groups with long-term care nurses were conducted using a vignette to elicit items most relevant to quality of life in cognitively impaired elders. These data were used to generate a 29-item version of the CILQ Scale. An exploratory factor analysis revealed a four-factor structure that included items related to social interaction, basic physical care, appearance of patient to others, and nutrition. In study 2, 67 nursing caregivers completed a shortened 14-item CILQ Scale using two actual patients as their reference. With these patients, the factor structure best resembled a three-factor solution including items related to social interaction, nutrition/comfort, and basic physical care.Over the past two decades, quality of life has become a pivotal concept in medical and health care decision making for all types of health consumers.
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