A new assessment of Activities of Daily Living has been developed specifically for use with people with dementia. The assessment is a carer rated instrument consisting of 20 daily-living abilities. The scale has 'face validity', assessing items rated as important by and using levels of ability generated by carers. It has 'construct' validity as demonstrated by principal components analysis. It has 'concurrent' validity in that it correlates well with observed task performance. It has good 'test-retest' reliability as measured by Cohen's Kappa and it correlates well with the Mini-Mental State Examination. Carers report that it is easy to use and it is relatively short. The authors believe the scale will be useful when assessing demented patients in the community or as part of clinical research trials.

HighlightsCryptosporidium diversity was investigated in a BTRW as part of a recovery programme.Faecal samples from captive bred, supplemented and wild wallabies were screened.Cryptosporidium isolates were identified at three gene loci using PCR.Diverse species of Cryptosporidium were identified across populations.Both specific, C. fayeri, and broad host species, C. meleagridis, were identified.

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Beardsall & Brayne (1990) have introduced a method for estimating full-length National Adult Reading Test (NART) scores using the scores on the first half of the test only. They suggest that this is appropriate for subjects who are of low reading ability and might otherwise find testing distressing. Crawford, Parker, Allan, Jack & Morrison (1991) have subsequently explored the accuracy with which Short NART predicted full NART scores and in addition WAIS IQ scores in a large cross-validation sample. They concluded that the Short NART could be used with modest confidence when estimating premorbid IQ. However, when applied to 202 consecutive referrals to this Memory Disorders Clinic, the accuracy with which the Short NART predicted full NART error scores was less satisfactory. Results indicated that discrepancies between Short NART and full NART error scores were outside the bounds of both clinical and statistical acceptability. Examination of these results revealed that one possible source of difficulty lay in variation in the accuracy with which words are pronounced. It is concluded that, despite the appeal of a shortened version of the NART to estimate premorbid IQ, without further modification its use in clinical practice cannot be recommended.