The ability of the Dementia Rating Scale to predict everyday functioning

Abstract

The Dementia Rating Scale (DRS) is a brief neuropsychological assessment battery designed to assess five areas of cognitive functioning in the elderly. The relationship between DRS performance and everyday functioning was examined for 50 psychogeriatric patients. Everyday functioning was assessed with a standardized performance measure examining self-care, safety, money management, cooking, medication administration, and community utilization. Regression analyses were conducted for each of the six functional domains. In addition, correlations between the DRS subscales and the functional areas were computed. Results revealed significant predictive relationships (p <.01) between performance on the DRS and most functional domains. The multiple Rs ranged from .52 - .70, accounting for 27% to 49% of the variance. The Initiation/Perseveration subscale was most heavily weighted in each analysis. Significant correlations were obtained between subdomains of cognition and most functional areas. The findings provide evidence of relationships between DRS performance and functional ability.

The Impact of Behavioral Symptoms on Activities of Daily Living in Patients With Dementia

“…Although recent studies have demonstrated that specific cognitive abilities (e.g., executive and memory functions) are associated with ADL performance in elderly populations, 4,[6][7][8]26 in general, the strength of the correlation between neuropsy-chological test performance and functional status tends to be low-to-moderate. For example, the correlation between the FLOPS Total score and Instrumental ADLs was -0.66, whereas the correlation between the DRS and the same functional measure was 0.47.…”

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The authors examined whether scores on two recently developed measures of behavioral disturbance, the Frontal Lobe Personality Scale (FLOPS) and the Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI), are associated with functional impairments in patients with dementia. [4][5][6][7][8] Researchers have only recently begun to explore the impact of behavioral disturbance on functional status. Findings indicated a relationship between behavioral changes and functional limitations in patients with dementia.

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Neuropsychological screening performance and the association with activities of daily living and instrumental activities of daily living in dementia: baseline and 18‐ to 24‐month follow‐up

“…In particular, the initiation/perseveration subscale of the Dementia Rating Scale (verbal fluency task, imitating motor programmes and copying a repeated pattern) was an important predictor for cooking, community functioning, money management, safety, self‐care and taking medications. Other studies of executive function have shown that these are generally associated with a decrease in functional ability including IADL and an increase in care and supervision (Nadler et al , ; Cahn‐Weiner et al , ; Grigsby et al , ; Royall et al , ). Cahn‐Weiner et al () found that measures traditionally held to be sensitive to executive functioning (such as Fluency Test, Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, Stroop and Trail Making Test) accounted for the greatest amount of variance in IADL.…”

Word list memory predicts everyday function and problem-solving in the elderly: Results from the ACTIVE cognitive intervention trial

“…In addition to self-reports of one’s ability to perform certain tasks, objective measures of performance on physical and cognitive tasks important to occupational and everyday functioning are also available (e.g., Nadler, Richardson, & Malloy, 1993; Willis & Marsiske, 1993). Two other aspects of everyday functioning are everyday cognition and psychomotor speed of cognitive processing.…”