The Course of Psychiatric and Behavioral Symptoms and the Use of Psychotropic Medication in Patients With Dementia in Norwegian Nursing Homes—A 12-Month Follow-Up Study

Reliability and validity of the Norwegian version of the Severe Impairment Battery (SIB)

“…A previous Swiss study has reported an incidence after six months of 10.5% for depression, 4.7% for delusion and 0.0% for hallucination (Wancata et al, 2003), while a previous Norwegian study reported that agitation, apathy and irritability have the highest cumulative incidence after one year (Selbaek et al, 2008b). This result was confirmed in the study from the Netherlands by , which also found that depression (19.6%) and disinhibition (16.7%) had a fairly low cumulative incidence.…”

“…According to our results, delusion, hallucinations, disinhibition, agitation and irritability have a resolution rate between assessments varying from 30 to 40%, indicating that approximately one-third of the patients with these symptoms are symptom-free four months later. At the same time, we know that 75% of patients with dementia using an antipsychotic are still prescribed the same antipsychotic 12 months later (Selbaek et al, 2008b). We see the same trend concerning the symptoms of depression, anxiety, apathy and irritability.…”

“…We see the same trend concerning the symptoms of depression, anxiety, apathy and irritability. The resolution rates for these symptoms are between 26% and 50% while the persistence rates for antidepressant prescription is 79.2% over 12 months (Selbaek et al, 2008b).…”

“…However, as the persistent use of psychotropic drugs generally is very high, we assume that the persistence of NPS is not influenced to a significant degree by the drug use. According to the results of two previous studies of nursing home patients, the severity of dementia and factors associated with being institutionalized most probably explain the persistence of the NPS (Selbaek et al, 2008b;.…”

“…Not surprisingly therefore, the prevalence of NPS among community-dwelling patients with dementia is lower (Lyketsos et al, 2002;Aalten et al, 2005;Savva et al, 2009) than among patients living in nursing homes (Ballard et al, 2001;. Previous studies assessing the course of NPS have included community-dwelling patients Marin et al, 1997;Haupt et al, 2000;Aalten et al, 2005;Ryu et al, 2005) and nursing home patients Wagner et al, 1995;Ballard et al, 2001;Wancata et al, 2003;Selbaek et al, 2008b;. Although the studies differ in terms of their assessment instruments, length of the follow-up period and number of assessments within the follow-up period, they have some results in common.…”