Abstract
Background/Aim: The aim of the study was to investigate the pattern of association of generic and disease-specific quality of life (QoL) scales with standard clinical outcome variables in Alzheimer's disease (AD). Methods: The participants were 321 home-living patients with mild AD and their primary caregivers from the Danish Alzheimer Intervention Study. QoL was assessed using the generic EuroQol-5D with visual analogue scale (VAS) and the disease-specific Quality of Life in Alzheimer's Disease (QOL-AD) scales (both caregiver and patient rated). Depression, activities of daily living, cognitive performance and neuropsychiatric symptom severity were also assessed. Results: All 3 caregiver-rated QoL scales correlated significantly with each other (p < 0.001) and with clinical measures. Patient-rated QoL versions correlated inversely with depression (p < 0.001) but not significantly with any other clinical variables. Conclusion: The caregiver-rated QoL scales showed stronger interscale correlation as well as a similar correlation pattern with standard clinical outcome variables compared to the patient-rated versions. There is some indication that the EQ-5D + VAS could be a suitable alternative to the QOL-AD scale in specific research designs.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | Dementia and Geriatric Cognitive Disorders |
| Volume | 30 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| Pages (from-to) | 327-333 |
| Number of pages | 7 |
| ISSN | 1420-8008 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Oct 2010 |