Misidentification Delusions: Prevalence in Different Types of Dementia and Validation of a Structured Questionnaire.

We examined 146 subjects with Alzheimer disease, 21 with Lewy body dementia, 6 with frontotemporal dementia, and 13 with vascular dementia (subcortical type), who were consecutively enrolled in the study from 2 Memory Clinics. Patients had a mean age of 78.7±6.4 years and an Mini-Mental State Examination average score of 16.9±6.1. The Neuropsychiatric Inventory delusion subscale and a new Misidentification Delusion Questionnaire aimed at specific assessment of 11 delusional misidentification syndromes were administrated to the caregivers. On the basis of the Neuropsychiatric Inventory, MDs were present in 33.3% of the subjects, whereas according to the Misidentification Delusion Questionnaire they were present in 36.0% of the subjects. Specifically, 34.2% of Alzheimer disease, 52.4% of Lewy body dementia, and 46.1% of vascular dementia patients experienced at least 1 MD. None of the patients with frontotemporal dementia developed MD. The most frequent MD was house misidentification, followed by splitting of people and reduplicative paramnesia. Our self-administered questionnaire proved to be an accurate and specific tool for the detection of MD. PMID: 26859554 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: Alzheimer Disease and Associated Disorders - Category: Psychiatry Tags: Alzheimer Dis Assoc Disord Source Type: research