Dementia-related behavioral changes — a physicianʹs office-based study

This is a physicianʹs office-based retrospective study of 161 dementia patients with (94) and without (67) behavioral symptoms. Those with disturbed behavior were subdivided into patients with behavior changes at initial evaluation and those encountered in existing dementia. The two main groups and the subgroups were studied in relation to individual and disease characteristics. The targeted behaviors (aggression, psychosis, aberrant motor behavior and miscellaneous) were analyzed in relation to four dementia-related domains namely cognitive impairment, language impairment, stage of illness (CDR) and functional disability (Rankin grades). No differences were observed between the two main groups in relation to age and gender and to cognitive impairment, language impairment and disability except for stage of illness (P=0.01). There were no significant differences in terms of age and gender in the two subgroups and in the frequency of single targeted behaviors but for psychosis which was the most commonly recorded disturbed behavior. There was no correlation between the single targeted behaviors and the different domains examined but for aberrant motor behavior and stage of illness (P=0.04) in the subgroups.