The long, short and the new short Brazilian IQCODE versions can be useful as a screening tool for mild and moderate patients with dementia in Brazil. The IQCODE is not biased by schooling, and it seems to be an adequate instrument for samples with low levels of education.
Memory clinics were established in the USA and European countries as services to
attend patients who complain of cognitive deficits, referred by primary care
doctors, specialists and other hospitals.ObjectiveWe aimed to describe the clinical and cognitive profile of consecutively
evaluated subjects during the initial three years of service of a memory
clinic from a university hospital.MethodsSubjects were submitted to a clinical work-up for dementia, which included
laboratory exams, cranial computerized tomography, cognitive tests, and a
comprehensive neuropsychological battery. Diagnosis was made according to
ICD-10 criteria.ResultsWe evaluated 104 subjects (67.3% females and 32.7% males), with mean age of
59.1 years, 88.8% aged 50 years or above. Mean schooling was 9.9 years.
Patients were classified into 10 different primary diagnostic categories,
namely Depression (26.9%), Alzheimer’s disease (17.3%), Memory complaints
without objective impairment (17.3%), Mild Cognitive Disorder – MCD (14.4%),
and Anxiety (12.5%) the most frequent diagnosis. Comparing patients with
dementia, MCD, Depression or Anxiety and Memory complainers, by age (below
and above 60 years), dementia was more commonly diagnosed in older subjects,
while a higher frequency of memory complainers was found in the younger
group.ConclusionsThis preliminary report from an outpatient group of referred patients with
cognitive complaints showed a higher frequency of psychiatric disorders in
this sample. The memory clinic approach should be considered as a model of
service which can evaluate subjects with cognitive complaints effectively
and improve the quality of care delivered to this patient group.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.