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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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The meaning of reporting forgetfulness
— a cross-sectional study of adults in the English 2007 Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey | | Author(s) | Claudia Cooper, Paul Bebbington, James Lindesay |
| Journal title | Age and Ageing, vol 40, no 6, November 2011 |
| Pages | pp 711-717 |
| Source | http://ageing.oxfordjournals.org/ http://www.bgs.org.uk/ |
| Keywords | Memory disorders ; Ageing process ; Clinical surveys. |
| Annotation | The purpose of the study was to measure subjective memory impairment (SMI) across the whole adult age range in a representative national survey. It was hypothesised that SMI prevalence would rise with age in a non-dementia population. Data was analysed from the English 2007 Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey, representative of people in private households. Participants were asked whether they had noticed problems with forgetting in the last month, or forgotten anything important in the last week. They also completed the modified Telephone Interview for Cognitive Status. Among those who took part in the study, and after excluding participants screening positive for dementia, 31.7% reported forgetfulness in the last month, while 6.4% had forgotten something important in the last week. Reporting forgetfulness was not associated with age. In a multivariate analysis including cognition and age, the only significant associates of reporting forgetfulness were anxiety, depression and somatic symptoms. So the hypothesis that subjective forgetfulness prevalence would rise with age in a non-demented population was not supported. Although subjective forgetfulness could be an early symptom of future or mild dementia, it was common and non-specific and more likely to be related to mood than to be an early symptom of dementia. Asking those presenting with subjective forgetfulness additional questions about memory and functional decline and objective forgetfulness were likely to help clinicians to detect those at risk of dementia. (JL). |
| Accession Number | CPA-120427006 A |
| Classmark | EH: BG: 3G |
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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