Screening and diagnosing dementia in people with Down ’s syndrome: implications of using the DLD questionnaire

Screening and diagnosing dementia in people with Down’s syndrome: implications of using the DLD questionnaire Bhathika Perera, Lukasz Kamieniarz, Mashal Iftikhar, Solomis Solomou Advances in Mental Health and Intellectual Disabilities, Vol. ahead-of-print, No. ahead-of-print, pp.- The Dementia Questionnaire for People with Learning Disabilities (DLD) is one of the main screening and monitoring tools for dementia in people with Down’s syndrome (DS). As part of a quality improvement project to improve the care for people with DS and dementia in an intellectual disability service, the authors studied the screening and monitoring process by retrospectively investigating the use of DLD and exploring clinicians’ experience of using it. DLDs completed in the service was retrospectively assessed. Changes in DLD scores were matched against people who received a clinical diagnosis of dementia. Data were analysed to estimate sensitivity, specificity and predictive values of DLD. A questionnaire was used to assess clinicians’ experience. Data for 20 service users was collected. DLD cognitive scores showed 80% sensitivity and 60% specificity for the diagnosis of dementia, with a positive predictive value of 40% and negative predictive value of 90%. Staff found DLD to be easy to perform but time consuming. This led to the preparation of a decision tool for appropriateness of performing a DLD. The results show that a negative DLD helps to e...
Source: Advances in Mental Health and Intellectual Disabilities - Category: Disability Authors: Source Type: research