Utility of IQCODE (Informant Questionnaire on Cognitive Decline in the Elderly) in Diagnosing Dementia in Malayalam...

Among screening instruments used to diagnose dementia by interviewing the caregivers rather than the patients, Informant Questionnaire on Cognitive Decline in the Elderly (IQCODE) is widely used.

To adapt and validate IQCODE in a Malayalam-speaking population and to study the utility of IQCODE in diagnosing dementia.

Cross-sectional study conducted as a two-phase survey on individuals aged ≥55 years availing dementia care services at three tertiary care hospitals and a dementia clinic in Kerala, India. In the first phase, modifications were made in the questionnaire (IQCODE) in accordance with local social and cultural practices. The questionnaire was then translated to Malayalam and back-translated to English. In the second phase, this was administered to healthy elderly subjects and close caretakers of dementia patients. These patients underwent neuropsychology evaluation consisting of mini-mental state examination (MMSE) and Addenbrooke's cognition examination-Malayalam (ACE-M), and the statistical correlation between mean IQCODE scores and ACE-M scores was assessed using ANOVA test.

A total of 396 patients with dementia were included in the study. The mean age group was 72.54 ± 7.11 years. The mean IQCODE score was 3.93 ± 0.68, and the mean ACE-M score was 39.96 ± 23.41. It has a statistically significant correlation with the total score of MMSE and ACE-M scales, confirming its utility as a good screening instrument.

The IQCODE could be adapted and translated to Malayalam without making any major changes in its content and has good acceptance among this cohort of hospital-based subjects.