title: Misidentification in patients with dementia.
abstract: This is a retrospective study of 116 dementia patients to determine the prevalance of misidentification in dementia and to evaluate its relationship to individual characteristics, behavioral and psychiatric manifestations and to certain dementia -related domains namely, cognitive impairment, stage of disease, language difficulties and functional disability. Misidentification was characterized as "misidentification of people", "phantom boarder", "mirror image" and "TV sign". 35% had misidentification and there was a close relationship between misidentification and accusatory behavior. Age, sex, cognitive impairment, stage of illness and functional disability were seen to confound the association between misidentification and accusatory behavior. The results suggest that misidentification is a frequent component of dementia. It is formulated that cognitive dysfunctioning and stage of disease confounded this association.
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D003702:Delusions / Q000209:etiology*; D003704:Dementia / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007806:Language Disorders / Q000209:etiology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012189:Retrospective Studies