Development of an instrument for early detection of dementia in people with Down syndrome

Abstract

The successful detection of early signs of dementia in people with Down syndrome could form a basis for useful early support and for drug treatment. This report describes the development and preliminary application of an interview and test instrument for the assessment of dementia among people with intellectual disability, as well as a framework for diagnosis that combines the findings of an interview and a test with the diagnostic criteria of ICD-10, DSM-IV and NINCDS-ADRDA. From among the number of tests and interview questions developed, those showing the most significant differences between participants in three groups of differing levels of intellectual disability and estimated dementia were kept. Reported are the assumptions for the items used, descriptions of the process and items used, and the associations of test items with predicting the presence of dementia. The authors conclude that a protocol combining testing and interview has promise and potential for detecting early signs of dementia in this population and could prove feasible for use in practice.

Keywords

Down syndrome; dementia; instrument

Published in

Journal of Intellectual & Developmental Disability
2002, number: 27
Publisher: Taylor & Francis

SLU Authors

• Terenius, Olle

  • Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

UKÄ Subject classification

Applied Psychology

Publication identifier

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/1366825021000029357

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/124004