Neuropsychiatric symptoms and severity of dementia

Abstract

Neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS) cause distress, disabilitiy and reduced quality of life for both the patient and their familiesOBJECTIVETo evaluate the prevalence of NPS as a specific stage of dementia status.METHODSA cross-sectional study in patients attending an outpatient clinic for dementia was performed. We applied the Neuropsychiatric Inventory and Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR) scale. Statistical analysis was carried out with SPSS 17 software.RESULTSThe 124 subjects (mean age of 80.4±7.0 years), 88 women (70.9%) had average duration of dementia of 7.1±3.2 years, most common dementias of Alzheimer's disease (35.5%) and mixed (31.5%) and most prevalent NPS of apathy (75%) and irritability (66.9%). Correlation between apathy and a CDR 1 had a PR (prevalence ratio) = 0.289 and p<0.001while between apathy and CDR 4-5 (PR=8.333, p<0.005). A similar result was found between aberrant motor behavior (AMB) and CDR 1 (PR=0.352, p<0.003) and between AMB and CDR4-5 (PR=2.929, p<0.006).CONCLUSIONAlzheimer's disease and mixed dementia were predominant, while apathy and AMB were detected in association with the progressive stages of dementia.