Dementia Care Research and Psychosocial Factors

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Gerontology
• Psychometrics

Background:

• Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADL) are crucial for detecting functional decline in dementia.
• Culturally adapted assessment tools for Latin America, particularly Peru, are limited.
• The Amsterdam IADL Questionnaire Short Version (A-IADL-Q-SV) has demonstrated global psychometric validity.

Purpose of the Study:

• To validate the Peruvian version of the Amsterdam IADL Questionnaire Short Version (A-IADL-Q-SV-P) in Peru.
• To assess the A-IADL-Q-SV-P's ability to classify dementia severity.
• To evaluate the robustness and agreement of the A-IADL-Q-SV-P with other clinical scales.

Main Methods:

• 171 participants were recruited from a cognitive clinic in Peru.
• Dementia severity was assessed using the Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR) scale.
• Quadratic discriminant analysis was employed to determine the A-IADL-Q-SV-P's classification accuracy for CDR levels.

Main Results:

• The A-IADL-Q-SV-P demonstrated excellent accuracy in classifying dementia severity (0.853) and normal cognition (sensitivity: 0.95, specificity: 0.91).
• High accuracy was maintained when analyzing participants with Alzheimer's disease or frontotemporal dementia (accuracy > 0.88).
• The scale showed strong correlations with cognitive (rho=-0.70) and functional measures (rho > 0.87), with weak associations with demographic variables.

Conclusions:

• The A-IADL-Q-SV-P is a valid and robust tool for assessing functional decline in dementia in Peru.
• Its strong correlation with cognitive and functional measures supports its clinical utility.
• The questionnaire's adaptability across dementia subtypes and populations highlights its value as a culturally relevant assessment instrument.