芳香を用いた認知症のスクリーニング方法

Abstract

The medical inspection which detects the early stage dementia is difficult because elderly person have a negative impression o the inspection. For this reason, the purpose of this study is to propose a screening method which can detect the dementia by using the simple olfactory identification test. Authors focused on the decrease of the olfactory function. Before the investigation, authors selected the seven odors which can be easily identified and which has not uncomfortable impression. These seven odors were selected among twelve odors that are included in OSIT-J (Odor Identification Test for Japanese). Experimental participants were eight healthy elderly people and twenty elderly people with dementia living at the nursing home. As a result, we clarified that olfactory function of elderly people with dementia is significantly lower(p < 0.003）than healthy elderly people. Furthermore, ROC （Receiver Operating Characteristic）analysis demonstrated that the investigation using seven odors has high screening capacity (AUC：Area Under the Curve = 0.95). Through these investigations results, we devised a screening method which has an accuracy of 75 percent for screening. The devised method may detect elderly people with questionable dementia more accurately by increasing the number of experimental participants.