Assessment in severe dementia: the Guy's Advanced Dementia Schedule

Previous findings suggest that severely demented subjects are often capable of responding in some ways to stimulation. This study describes the development of a schedule which can discriminate between subjects on the basis of their responses to a range of objects of varying familiarity. The schedule includes extensive prompting to elicit a range of responses from simple taking of objects through to naming and using. The measure was found to be reliable and valid against the Clifton Assessment Procedures for the Elderly and the Mini-Mental State Examination. Scores were able to discriminate between subjects scoring 0 on the Mini-Mental State Examination. It is suggested that scores on the schedule may reflect residual cognitive capacities and orientation to the environment and as such this measure could prove useful to a range of future studies.