Alzheimer's Disease: Assessment of Functional Status

Abstract

The initial assessments of cognitive, psychologic, and behavioral functioning of 17 adults enrolled in a day care program for victims of Alzheimer's disease are described. These evaluations by the staff, the patients themselves, and their primary caregivers made use of standardized quantitative measures, thus permitting correlational analysis of the data. Little information is available on the relationships between these areas of function in Alzheimer's disease. Such data are useful in determining realistic expectations of patient function by family and staff. They also provide a data base for the longitudinal study of the effects of the disease on these functional areas. Testing established a strong statistically significant association between cognitive and behavioral functions, and between morale and behavioral function. However, only modest correlations between cognitive and psychologic functions were evidenced.