The differentiation of depression from senile dementia in the elderly

Abstract

SUMMARYTwo studies were carried out to validate the St Thomas' Questionnaire (SQSD) for use by health professionals to distinguish between cases of depression in the elderly without underlying organic involvement, and thus potentially reversible, from those of a progressive and irreversible senile dementing state. In the first study 50 patients with a diagnosis of senile dementia, 50 with functional disorders known to include an affective component and a control group of 50 coping elderly people within the district were psychologically tested. Independent assessments by a psychiatrist were also provided for the two experimental groups. After taking age and IQ differences into account using multiple regression, performance scores on the SQSD were compared between groups. Significant differences were found @<O.O 1) between controls and dementing patients and between depressed patients and dementing patients, but not between depressed patients and controls. When individual subtests of the SQSD were examined, certain items were found to be of greater discriminatory value than others, and in the second study the less discriminatory items were eliminated and a shorter version of the test was administered to a further sample of 50 patients diagnosed as depressed and/ or dementing. Again significant differences were found wO.01) between the groups, demonstrating the SQSD to be of diagnostic value in discriminating a primarily depressed state from a dementing process.K E Y WORDS -Questionnaire, senile dementia, diagnosis.

The behavioural assessment scale of later life (BASOLL): A Description, factor analysis, scale development, validity and reliability data for a new scale for older adults

“…The majority were restricted in content area to cognitive functioning (Portalska and Bernstein, 1988;Jorm and Jacomb, 1989), activities of daily living (Spear et al, 1991), behaviour problems (Ray et al, 1992) or ad hoc combinations or different areas of assessment (Spiegel et al, 1991). Further, many assessments required specialized knowledge to administer or to interpret results or were too time-consuming to be used in everyday practice (Gurel et al, 1972).…”