title: A new simple score (ABS) for assessing behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia.
abstract: In addition to cognitive impairment, behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD) are another important aspect of most dementia patients. This study was designed for a new simple assessment of BPSD. We first employed a clinical survey for the local community with sending an inquiry letter to all members (n=129) of dementia caregiver society, and then attempted to create a new BPSD score for dementia with 10 BPSD items. This new simple BPSD score was compared to a standard-detailed BPSD score neuropsychiatric inventory (NPI) for a possible correlation (n=792) and a time to complete (n=136). Inter-rater reliability was examined comparing scores between main and second caregivers (n=70) for AD. Based on the clinical survey for local caregivers, a new BPSD score for dementia (ABS, Abe's BPSD score) was newly created, in which each BPSD item was allotted by an already-weighted score (maximum 1-9) based on the frequency and severity, and was finalized with taking temporal occurrences into account. ABS was filled by the main caregiver with a full score of 44, was well correlated with NPI (r=0.716, **p<0.01) in 792 AD patients (age 78.6 ± 7.0 years, MMSE 19.0 ± 5.9), and took a shorter time as only 56.8 ± 38.8s (**p<0.01) than NPI score (132.7 ± 94.0 s) with 136 AD patients. A high inter-rater reliability was obtained (r=0.964, **p<0.01) with a little smaller score (0.877 time) of ABS in secondary than the main caregivers. ABS provides a new simple and quick test for BPSD assessment, with a good correlation to NPI but a shorter time, and with a high inter-rater reliability. Thus ABS is useful for evaluating BPSD for mild to moderate dementia patients.
authors: Department of Neurology, Graduate School of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmaceutical Science, Okayama University, Okayama, Japan. Electronic address: abekabek@cc.okayama-u.ac.jp.
authors: K
authors: K
authors: Abe
authors: Department of Neurology, Graduate School of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmaceutical Science, Okayama University, Okayama, Japan.
authors: T
authors: T
authors: Yamashita
authors: Department of Neurology, Graduate School of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmaceutical Science, Okayama University, Okayama, Japan.
authors: N
authors: N
authors: Hishikawa
authors: Department of Neurology, Graduate School of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmaceutical Science, Okayama University, Okayama, Japan.
authors: Y
authors: Y
authors: Ohta
authors: Department of Neurology, Graduate School of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmaceutical Science, Okayama University, Okayama, Japan.
authors: K
authors: K
authors: Deguchi
authors: Department of Neurology, Graduate School of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmaceutical Science, Okayama University, Okayama, Japan.
authors: K
authors: K
authors: Sato
authors: Department of Neurology, Graduate School of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmaceutical Science, Okayama University, Okayama, Japan.
authors: K
authors: K
authors: Matsuzono
authors: Department of Neurology, Graduate School of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmaceutical Science, Okayama University, Okayama, Japan.
authors: Y
authors: Y
authors: Nakano
authors: Department of Neurology, Graduate School of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmaceutical Science, Okayama University, Okayama, Japan.
authors: Y
authors: Y
authors: Ikeda
authors: Department of Neurology, Kurashiki Heisei Hospital, Kurashiki, Japan.
authors: Y
authors: Y
authors: Wakutani
authors: Department of Neurology, Kurashiki Heisei Hospital, Kurashiki, Japan.
authors: Y
authors: Y
authors: Takao
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001526:Behavioral Symptoms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology*; D003704:Dementia / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests / Q000592:standards*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012720:Severity of Illness Index
keywords: ABS; AD; BPSD; Dementia; MMSE; NPI