Can an informant questionnaire be used to predict the development of dementia in medical inpatients?
OBJECTIVE
To determine whether elderly medical inpatients without dementia who score >3.31 on the short form of the Informant Questionnaire on Cognitive Decline in the Elderly (IQCODE) are at an increased risk of developing dementia.


METHODS
Twenty-nine patients with an IQCODE score of >3.31 without dementia and 29 age- and sex-matched controls, from an original sample of 201 medical inpatients over 65, were examined 17-24 months after initial assessment.


METHODS
Interviews took place in patients' homes, but all subjects had been recruited while medical inpatients in a general hospital 17-24 months previously.


METHODS
The IQCODE and clinical interview to make DSM-III-R diagnosis of dementia.


RESULTS
Ten of the study group and one control had developed dementia since the original assessment.


CONCLUSIONS
Non-demented elderly medical inpatients with an admission IQCODE score of >3.31 are more likely to develop dementia than those with an IQCODE score of <3.31. The IQCODE is a sensitive tool for detecting early dementia.
Louis
B
B
University of Oxford Department of Psychiatry, Warneford Hospital, Oxford, UK.
Harwood
D
D
Hope
T
T
Jacoby
R
R
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000175:diagnosis*; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006769:Hospitals, General; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008609:Mental Status Schedule / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010343:Patient Admission; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012306:Risk; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires