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Feasibility of retrospective assessments of behavioral symptoms in Alzheimer's disease: a preliminary study of postmortem caregiver reports
Author(s)John P Bolger, Milton E Strauss, John S Kennedy
Journal titleInternational Psychogeriatrics, vol 10, no 1, March 1998
Pagespp 61-69
KeywordsDementia ; Diagnosis ; Evaluation ; Family care ; United States of America.
AnnotationStudies of the behavioural symptoms in Alzheimer's disease (AD) would be facilitated if reliable reports could be obtained retrospectively, in particular about symptoms in the final months of life when concurrent assessment is often not feasible. To evaluate such a method, this US study compared results of a telephone interview conducted after the patient's death with information provided by the same informant earlier, while the patient was living. Agreement between in-life and retrospective assessments was higher for psychotic symptoms than for depressive behaviours, suggesting that retrospective assessments of specific behavioural symptoms in AD is not uniformly reliable. More symptoms were retrospectively reported as the length of time between the last in-life evaluation and the date of death increased, suggesting that there may be increased variety of behavioural symptoms observed by caregivers in the final stages of the disease. (AKM).
Accession NumberCPA-980915405 A
ClassmarkEA: LK7: 4C: P6:SJ: 7T

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