Cognitive decline in the elderly: screening from the elderly person and his/her informant
International Journal of Development Research
Cognitive decline in the elderly: screening from the elderly person and his/her informant
Received 18th June, 2019; Received in revised form 26th July, 2019; Accepted 11th August, 2019; Published online 30th September, 2019
Copyright © 2019, Alex Miranda Franco et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Objective: To analyze the cognitive decline in the elderly using the screening from the elderly person and his/her informant. Methods: This is a descriptive, exploratory, cross-sectional study with quantitative approach. The sample was stratified randomly. The cognitive screening instruments were the Mini Mental and the IQ-CODE, and, to test the reliability of the IQ-CODE, the reliability scales ZARIT and CES-D. The data were analyzed with SPSS, using the distribution of frequency (absolute and relative), mean values and standard deviation. In the bivariate analysis, Pearson’s chi-squared test and Fisher’s exact test were used, with p ≤ 0.05. Resulted: The application of the reliability instruments (ZARIT and CES-D) to the IQ-CODE showed that the decline was prevalent in males from 70 to 90 years, white, unmarried and illiterate (p=0.002). There was an association of the Mini Mental and IQ-CODE when using reliability scales (p=0.018). Conclusion: The Mini Mental and IQ-CODE are good instruments for cognitive screening in the elderly and, when used with reliability scales, have proven their association with cognitive decline.
