Patterns of loss of abilities in instrumental activities of daily living in Alzheimer's disease: the REAL cohort study.
OBJECTIVE
To determine patterns of loss of abilities in instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) in community-dwelling women with Alzheimer's disease (AD).


METHODS
Sixteen French university hospitals included 471 consecutive women with mild to moderately severe AD (Mini-Mental State Examination scores between 10 and 26) from April 2000 to June 2002 in the noninterventional REAL cohort. At inclusion, 6 and 12 months, IADL were assessed with the Lawton scale. Patterns of loss of abilities in the 8 IADL of the Lawton scale were described using Lawton binary grading.


RESULTS
At inclusion, 56.7% of the patients shared the same pattern of loss of abilities and 84.3% had this pattern or variants of it. Frequencies of the 8 incapacities were: 80.7% to do the grocery shopping, 76.0% to take medication, 72.2% to prepare meals, 41.4% to travel on public transportation even when assisted, 40.6% to manage purchases, 30.1% to launder small items, 14.2% to participate in some housekeeping tasks and 11.0% to answer the telephone.


CONCLUSIONS
In this study including 471 community-dwelling women with AD of the French REAL cohort, the loss of the 8 IADL, assessed with the Lawton binary grading, was homogeneous for more than four fifths of the patients.
Lechowski
Laurent
L
Service de Médecine Gériatrique, AP-HP, Hôpital Sainte-Périne, Paris, France. laurent.lechowski@spr.aphp.fr
de Stampa
Matthieu
M
Denis
Bertrand
B
Tortrat
Danièle
D
Chassagne
Philippe
P
Robert
Philippe
P
Teillet
Laurent
L
Vellas
Bruno
B
D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000453:epidemiology*; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011596:Psychomotor Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires