Relationships among the symptoms of the elderly as revealed by multivariate analysis: a preliminary study

One hundred and sixty-eight elderly subjects in a geriatric hospital and the adjoining nursing home were examined in a study of relationships among the items of Hasegawa's dementia scale. A three-dimensional model using multivariate analysis demonstrated the relationships among items. The results led to the identification of six clinical groups determined by the presence of stroke and the score on the dementia scale. Nonstroke subjects of middle intellectual level had disturbances of memory and orientation. This group fell into two categories during the course of a five-year follow-up study: severe dementia and intellectual deterioration. Retrospective multivariate analysis results suggested that features characteristic of the severe intellectual deterioration group were earlier disturbances of orientation and distant memory. This statistical method uses only objective clinical data in order to avoid subjective and, often, biased judgments.