QOL for a person with dementia is a complex issue that is associated with several patient and caregiver factors. Efforts to improve patients' QOL should be addressed for both patients and caregivers. The measurement of QOL should be included, when possible, as a standard measurement tool, in everyday dementia clinical practice.

Objectives: Many people with dementia live in their home and require ongoing care, which is often provided by informal family caregivers. Thus, we examined the effectiveness of a multicomponent home-based intervention by evaluating its impact on a) neuropsychiatric symptoms of people with dementia and b) burden and depression of their caregivers. Methods: During the first 6 months of this prospective single-center study, we applied a home-based multicomponent intervention in 205 dyads of care-recipients and caregivers. In further analyzes, we included only dyads of caregivers and care-recipients with available data both at baseline and 6-month follow-up (N = 144). All assessments were conducted at home and included sociodemographic features, care-recipients’ clinical data, cognitive status (Mini-Mental State Examination), activities of daily living (Instrumental Activities of Daily Living; Katz Index of Independence in Activities of Daily Living), neuropsychiatric symptoms (Neuropsychiatric Inventory), and caregivers’ burden (Zarit Burden Inventory) and depression (Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression). Results: We found significant decreases in the severity (pFDR = 0.002) and associated distress (pFDR = 0.001) of neuropsychiatric symptoms, as well as caregivers’ burden (pFDR = 0.004) and depressive symptoms (pFDR = 0.001). As expected, there was significant deterioration in care-recipients’ cognitive status (pFDR = 0.005) and measures of activities of daily living (pFDR < 0.005). Conclusion: Despite the progressive course of dementia, the home-based multicomponent intervention was effective in decreasing caregivers’ burden and depression and minimizing care-recipients’ neuropsychiatric symptoms’ severity and associated distress after 6 months. Our study highlights the establishment of home-based care units as an advantageous solution, specifically for family members seen to have a “taken-for-granted” role in dementia caring.

Depression in dementia is known to deteriorate patients' cognitive function and Quality of Life and to increase the burden of care. Although detecting depression in dementia is crucial, there is no gold standard for its screening and diagnosis. We examined the psychometric properties of 3 different scales in detecting depression in dementia. Results will be useful as community services for dementia in the country are developing and the need for reliable detection of depression in dementia patients is urgent. Our sample consisted of 136 Greek dementia patients who consulted a memory clinic. For the diagnosis of depression, DSM-IV criteria for major depression and 3 different depression measures were used: a self-assessment scale (Geriatric Depression Scale; GDS), a caregiver assessment scale (Neuropsychiatric Inventory-Depression; NPI-D) and a clinician rated scale (Cornell Scale for Depression in Dementia; CSDD). For the evaluation of the screening performance of the three depression scales receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) analysis was applied. The DSMIV criteria served as the gold standard method for the diagnosis of major depression. CSDD showed the best psychometric properties for the diagnosis of depression in dementia. The ROC curve analysis revealed that among the three measures, the CSDD had the wider AUC (0.919), second in the width of the AUC was the GDS (0.871), and last was the NPI-D (0.812). The prevalence of depression ranged from 18.4% according to DSM-IV criteria to 42.6% using the NPI-D. Using the GDS (cut off point: 7/8) and the CSDD (cut off point: 6/7), depression was present in 26.9% and 33.1% of the patients, respectively. Correlations between scales used were significant (r from 0.432 to 0.660; p<0.001). Caregivers tend to report more depressive symptoms in dementia compared to patients' and clinicians' ratings. CSDD should be used in specialized centers, but GDS may be an alternative in patients able to complete the assessment. The need to establish valid criteria for the diagnosis of depression in dementia is urgent.

Introduction Short cognitive screening instruments (CSIs) are widely used to stratify patients presenting with cognitive symptoms. The Quick Mild Cognitive Impairment (Qmci) screen is a new, brief (&lt;5mins) CSI designed to identify mild cognitive impairment (MCI), which can be used across the spectrum of cognitive decline. Here we present the translation of the Qmci into Greek (Qmci-Gr) and its validation against the widely-used Standardised Mini-Mental State Examination (SMMSE). Methods Consecutive patients aged ≥55 years presenting with cognitive complaints were recruited from two outpatient clinics in Greece. All patients completed the Qmci-Gr and SMMSE and underwent an independent detailed neuropsychological assessment to determine a diagnostic classification. Results In total, 140 patients, median age 75 years, were included; 30 with mild dementia (median SMMSE 23/30), 76 with MCI and 34 with subjective memory complaints (SMC) but normal cognition. The Qmci-Gr had similar accuracy in differentiating SMC from cognitive impairment (MCI & mild dementia) compared with SMMSE, area under the curve (AUC) of 0.84 versus 0.79, respectively; while accuracy was higher for the Qmci-Gr, this finding was not significantly different, (p = .19). Similarly, the Qmci-Gr had similar accuracy in separating SMC from MCI, AUC of 0.79 versus 0.73 (p = .23). Conclusions The Qmci-Gr compared favorably with the SMMSE. Further research with larger samples and comparison with other instruments such as the Montreal Cognitive Assessment is needed to confirm these findings but given its established brevity, it may be a better choice in busy clinical practice in Greece.

A545 Objectives: To estimate the direct total and component medical costs for inpatient and outpatient care for patients with schizophrenia in Tianjin, China. MethOds: Data were extracted from the Tianjin Urban Employee Basic Medical Insurance database. Patients (N= 2125) who were aged ≥ 18 years, at least 1 diagnosis of schizophrenia and 12-month continuous enrollment after their first observed schizophrenia diagnosis between 2008 and 2010 were included. Psychiatric-related inpatient and outpatient direct medical costs were estimated. Results: During the study period, 60.8% of patients had at least one inpatient admission and 39.2% used only outpatient services. The mean (± SD