Instrumental Activities of Daily Living Questionnaires for Dementia and Mild Cognitive Impairment

Abstract

Background: Our aim was to explore the role of instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) questionnaires in transition from no cognitive impairment to mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and dementia in comparison to neuropsychological tests. Methods: We monitored 397 community-dwelling elderly from a Memory Clinic every 6 months with Nottingham IADL, mini-mental state examination (MMSE), Montreal cognitive assessment (MoCA), Addenbrooke cognitive assessment and frontal assessment battery. Results: IADL impairment in older people free of dementia was a powerful predictor of incident dementia similar in magnitude to neuropsychological tests. IADL had high correlations (r = 0.37 - 0.47) with initial MMSE, MoCA, frontal assessment battery and Addenbrooke cognitive examination-R (ACE-R) with highly significant P values (< 0.0001). There were also high correlations between IADL at baseline and at 6, 12 and 24 months. Literature search disclosed 22 articles measuring IADL questionnaires (IADL-Q). Conclusions: IADL-Q are a simple cost-free method for measuring cognitive function and predicting incident dementia. J Neurol Res. 2015;5(1-2):153-159 doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.14740/jnr316w