The early recognition of dementia in the elderly: A preliminary communication about a longitudinal study using the gms–agecat package (community version)

Abstract

A random community sample of 1070 subjects aged over 65 was interviewed by trained non-medical interviewers using the Geriatric Mental State, community version (GMSA). A sub-sample of 126 subjects was selected so as to contain possible early cases of dementia, pseudo-dementia, and normal subjects; and re-interviewed, a mean I year and 23 weeks later, by a group of psychiatrists in training. The computer diagnosis AGECAT. based on GMSA applied by non-medical raters, had predicted at initial interview, nine out of twelve cases of dementia at follow-up and five out of nine borderline cases. An OrganiciDepression Index may prove useful in predicting which of those cases with early organic levels will eventually develop dementia, depression or recover.

Dementia and depression in elderly persons: Agecat compared with dsm III and pervasive illness

“…Only longitudinal studies at present being undertaken will reveal if these designations of sub or mild cases have prognostic implications. An interim follow-up study on a Liverpool community sample suggests that they may (Copeland et al, 1986b).…”

“…AGECAT is a computerized diagnostic system (Copeland et al, 1986b;Dewey and Copeland, 1986) which uses items from the full Geriatric Mental State (GMS) (Copeland et af., 1976), the community version (GMSA) or the original CARE interview to derive psychiatric diagnoses. It was constructed according to a theoretical model and tested against psychiatrists' diagnoses and outcome studies (Copeland et al, 1986a(Copeland et al, , 1988.…”

“…An equal proportion of 'well' subjects scoring below the criterion of 4 for the dementia scale and 18 for the depression scale was mixed with those in case range. AGECAT's nomination of a 'case' at diagnostic confidence level 3 or above represents a 'syndrome case' as defined by Copeland et al (1986b).…”

Risk factors for dementia: Evidence from the liverpool study of continuing health in the community

“…A random sample was drawn from general prsltitioner lists and 1486 people aged 65 and over living in the community in Liverpool were identified as the eligible sample; of these 1070 were interviewed using the community version of the Geriatric Mental State (GMS) schedule and the results were analysed using the AGECAT computerized diagnostic package (Copeland et al, 1986b;Dewey and Copeland, 1986) t o produce diagnoses. The G M S is 0885 62301 881040245 05$05.00 0 1988 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd a semistructured interview schedule specialized for use with the elderly.…”

The geriatric mental state schedule administered with the aid of a microcomputer: A pilot study

“…A shortened version of the G M S (version A) has been developed which consists of about 240 individual items (Copeland et al, 1986). These items were derived from the full G M S by linear discriminant analysis, selecting those which differentiated cases from non-cases, demented from depressed patients, and the last two categories from other diagnoses.…”