[Significance of impartial assessment of geriatric brain diseases]

In addition to traditional psychodiagnostic and neuropsychological methods used for assessing cognitive performance and its possible deterioration in the elderly, a number of instruments are available today that allow reliable and valid behavioural assessments to be made of geriatric patients' everyday behaviour. While rating of institutionalized geriatric patients usually focuses on the type and amount of nursing care needed, other areas of behaviour, such as activities of daily life (ADL) and instrumental ADL (IADL), memory, mood, social behaviour and disturbing behaviours are of primary interest in the case of aged individuals living in their own homes. The NOSGER (Nurses' observation scale for geriatric patients), which was introduced a few years ago, allows assessment of six important dimensions of behaviour; the scale can be easily and reliably used by professional nursing personnel as well as by untrained caregivers. The present paper describes the practical use of the instrument as well as possible graphic display of NOSGER findings; furthermore, normative values for five out of six NOSGER dimensions are given.