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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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'Doing things differently'
— working towards distributed responsibility within memory assessment services | | Author(s) | Sean Page, Kevin Hope, Jose Mathew, Penny Bee |
| Journal title | International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, vol 27, no 3, March 2012 |
| Pages | pp 280-285 |
| Source | http://www.interscience.wiley.com/journal/gps |
| Keywords | Memory and Reminiscence ; Memory disorders ; Dementia ; Diagnosis ; Evaluation ; Medical workers ; Paid welfare workers ; Nurses ; Occupational therapists ; Training [welfare work]. |
| Annotation | To manage the demands of the increased number of people developing dementia, there is a need to distribute responsibilities more effectively in Memory Assessment Services. The aim of this study was to determine whether a range of Allied Health Professions (AHPs), namely mental health nurses, occupational therapists and social workers, can be effectively trained in the clinical assessment of dementia. Specifically, the study aimed to compare initial diagnostic hypotheses made by AHPs with subsequent formal multidisciplinary formulation based upon the full possession of investigations, neuropsychological tests and brain imaging. A prospective analysis was conducted of 90 consecutive referrals seen by nine AHP members of a newly established Memory Assessment Service, all of whom had undergone the training programme. A total of 58 patients were diagnosed by the multi-disciplinary team as having a dementia. 20 were classified as Alzheimer's disease, 28 of mixed sub-type and nine of vascular origin. Together, the AHP's were able to detect dementia with 91% accuracy. The diagnostic accuracy for each professional group ranged from 88% to 93%. The findings show that structured initial assessments by AHPs are an accurate method of determining a diagnosis of cognitive impairment. (JL). |
| Accession Number | CPA-120914007 A |
| Classmark | DB: EH: EA: LK7: 4C: QT: QP: QTE: QTR: QW |
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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