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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Urban-rural differences in a memory disorders clinical population | | Author(s) | Sarah B Wackerbarth, Mitzi M S Johnson, William R Markesbery |
| Journal title | Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, vol 49, no 5, May 2001 |
| Pages | pp 647-650 |
| Keywords | Memory disorders ; Geriatric out-patients clinics ; Urban areas ; Rural areas ; Comparison ; United States of America. |
| Annotation | Data and the experience of staff of the University of Kentucky's Alzheimer's Disease Research Center's (ADRC) memory disorder clinics (one in an urban area, the other in a rural area) were used to compare patient characteristics and family perceptions of patients. In both clinics. patients and family members were more likely female. The typical urban clinic patient was more likely to be more educated and not living at home than the typical rural patient. Urban and rural patients did not show significant differences in age- and education-adjusted Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) scores of raw activity of daily living (ADL) and instrumental ADL (IADL) ratings, but urban family members reported more memory problems, twice as many personality changes, more frequent behaviour problems, and more adverse reactions to problems. Doctors who practice in both urban and rural areas can anticipate differences between those patients and their families seeking a diagnosis of memory problems. Moreover, despite similarities in reported functional abilities, urban families appear to be more sensitive to and distressed by patients' symptoms than rural families. These differences may reflect different underlying needs. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-020115224 A |
| Classmark | EH: L6G: RK: RL: 48: 7T |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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