Research article summary:

Prevalence of cognitive impairment amongst Singapores elderly Chinese: a community-based study using the ECAQ and the IQCODE.

Abstract Extract:
OBJECTIVES: This study examined the prevalence of cognitive impairment in the elderly Chinese living in the Queenstown district of Singapore using two locally-validated cognitive screening instruments: the Elderly Cognitive Assessment Questionnaire ... (Full abstract text below)

Published 2003Feb in Journal: Int J Geriatr Psychiatry (Language : eng)

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1. Int J Geriatr Psychiatry. 2003 Feb;18(2):142-8

Prevalence of cognitive impairment amongst Singapore's elderly Chinese: a community-based study using the ECAQ and the IQCODE.

Lim HJ, Lim JP, Anthony P, Yeo DH, Sahadevan S

Department of Anaesthesia, Tan Tock Seng Hospital, 11 Jalan Tan Tock Seng, Singapore 308433, Republic of Singapore.

OBJECTIVES: This study examined the prevalence of cognitive impairment in the elderly Chinese living in the Queenstown district of Singapore using two locally-validated cognitive screening instruments: the Elderly Cognitive Assessment Questionnaire (ECAQ), and the Informant Questionnaire on the Cognitive Decline of the Elderly (IQCODE). METHODS: 234 elderly Chinese subjects were randomly selected from the Queenstown district and administered the ECAQ, while their principal relatives were administered the IQCODE. The screening instruments' respective cut-off scores to identify cognitive impairment indicative of dementia were based on local validation work. RESULTS: The prevalence of cognitive impairment was computed based on the percentage of failed scores on the two screening instruments. We found the prevalence of cognitive impairment to be 7.7% by ECAQ (95% Confidence Intervals (CI): 4.6%-10.1%) and 13.2% by IQCODE (95% CI: 9.4%-17.7%). A similar study in 1990 using ECAQ on elderly Chinese from the Henderson district in Singapore showed a cognitive impairment prevalence of 4%. This ECAQ-based variation between the two studies, likely indicates a true difference in prevalence rates between the two communities. On the other hand, the different ECAQ and IQCODE prevalence rates within our Queenstown study probably reflect spectrum bias, with IQCODE detecting earlier stages of dementia than ECAQ. CONCLUSION: We have found the prevalence of cognitive impairment amongst Singapore's elderly to be higher than previously reported. These findings imply that current resources may be inadequate for the effective care and management of the cognitively-impaired elderly in our aging community.

PMID : 12571823 [PubMed - Indexed for MEDLINE]

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Full Author Information

First Name	LastName	Initials
Hsien Jer	Lim	HJ
Joy P'ing Ping	Lim	JP
Philomena	Anthony	P
Donald Hong Huang	Yeo	DH
Suresh	Sahadevan	S

Affiliation: Department of Anaesthesia, Tan Tock Seng Hospital, 11 Jalan Tan Tock Seng, Singapore 308433, Republic of Singapore.

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