Centre for Policy on Ageing



Assessment of progression and prognosis in `possible' and `probable' Alzheimer's disease
Author(s)	G R J Swanwick, R F Coen, D Coakley
Journal title	International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, vol 13, no 5, May 1998
Pages	pp 331-335
Keywords	Dementia ; Symptoms ; Evaluation ; Longitudinal surveys ; Ireland.
Annotation	The annual rate of change (ARC) for cognitive/functional scales was calculated for 95 subjects with Alzheimer's disease (AD) attending a memory clinic. Two consecutive ARCs were calculated for a sub-group of 39 subjects. The ARCs were normally distributed; however, there was a large degree of variability. Neither age nor duration of symptoms at presentations were predictive of the rate of decline. However, the data suggested an effect of gender, with males having a greater rate of decline in cognition (p=0.02). Finally, the rate of progression over the first year did not predict the subsequent ARC (p=0.25). The high variability in ARCs observed in this study and poor correlation between consecutive ARCs suggest that neither ARC values nor the previous rate of decline can be used to aid clinicians in the assessment of response to acetylcholinesterase inhibitors or other specific treatments for AD. (RH).
Accession Number	CPA-980811006 A
Classmark	EA: CT: 4C: 3J: 763
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...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing.