Cognitive status in the community dwelling Thai elderly.

OBJECTIVE: To survey the prevalence of cognitive impairment in the elderly and to estimate the prevalence of dementia in the community dwelling Thai population. To assess the psychometric property of Thai Mental State Examination (TMSE). MATERIAL AND METHOD: We conducted a countrywide survey of 3,177 Thai elderly who were 60 years old and over from 1995 to 1997. Medical history and ability to carry out daily activities were taken by trained medical personnel. Thai Mental State Examination (TMSE) was used for cognitive study. Every elderly person involved in this study was examined by either an internist or a neurologist. Blood was taken for haematological and biochemical analysis. SPSS 6.0 was the main statistical analysis of the data. RESULTS: Three thousand one hundred and seventy seven elderly people were enrolled in this study, thirty eight point eight per cent were male and sixty one point two per cent were female. There was correlation between age, education and TMSE (r=-0.345, r=0.473, p<0.001). We found no correlation between TMSE, mean arterial blood pressure (BP), systolic BP, diastolic BP, haematocrit, cholesterol, triglyceride, blood sugar and syphilitic serology. Multiple cut off points of TMSE was proposed to utilise the twenty fifth percentile in each five yearly age interval. Those who were under the 25th percentile of TMSE and had impaired daily activities were diagnosed as dementia. The prevalence of dementia was 9.88 percentiles in our study. CONCLUSION: Dementia is a common problem in the Thai elderly. As treatment has become available for several etiologies of dementia, early detection and assessment of dementia with a cognitive screening test are essential. Public education to distinguish between dementia and old age needs to be emphasised.

Cognitive behavior rating scales.

The Cogntitve Behavior Rating Scales (CBRS) which includes 9 scales : language deficit (CD), apraxia (AP), disorientation (DO), agitation (AG), need for routine (NR), depression (DEP), higher cognitive deficits (HCD), memory deficit (MD), dementia (DEM), was translated and adapted into a Thai language for using with elderly people who has/has no memory problem. Reliability of the scales and sociodemographic data were investigated. The scales had been applied to 72 normal healthy elderly, aged between 61-88 years at Roy-ed province and 24 demented elderly patients, aged between 70-94 years at Bang – sue Community. The alpha coefficients for the nine CBRS scales from 0.68-0.98. The result suggests that the rating scale may assist in the discrimination of normal and demented elderly people, and gender identity had no effected to both groups.

Personality traits of medical students: The changing during 3 periods of academic year.

The personality traits of medical students in the first to fifth year of academic study were compared, using MMPI for data collection and the t and F tests for analysis. The major finding was a general trend for third year students to be under more pressure than any other group.