Neuropsychiatric Assessment in Dementia Care
Summary
Neuropsychiatric assessment in dementia care encompasses the systematic identification and measurement of behavioural and psychological symptoms that accompany cognitive decline. These symptoms—ranging from apathy and depression to agitation and hallucinations—profoundly affect patient well-being, caregiver burden and care planning. Clinicians employ a combination of informant-rated instruments, structured clinical interviews and increasingly digital tools to capture the fluctuating nature of these symptoms. Robust assessment frameworks enable early detection, tailored non-pharmacological and pharmacological interventions, and ongoing monitoring of treatment response. In multicultural and resource-limited settings, reliable and efficient methods for symptom capture are essential to extend the benefits of precision care and to reduce the global burden of dementia.
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Neuropsychiatric Assessment in Dementia Care publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in neuropsychiatric assessment in dementia care across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS): behavioural and psychological manifestations including apathy, depression and agitation that occur in dementia.
Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI): a clinician- or informant-rated scale to assess the frequency and severity of NPS across multiple domains.
Electronic health record (EHR): a digital version of a patient’s medical and care information, used for documentation and analysis.
Natural language processing (NLP): computational methods to extract and classify information from unstructured clinical text.
References
- The reporting of neuropsychiatric symptoms in electronic health records of individuals with Alzheimer’s disease: a natural language processing study. Alzheimer's Research & Therapy (2023).
- Assessment of Social Behavior Using a Passive Monitoring App in Cognitively Normal and Cognitively Impaired Older Adults: Observational Study. JMIR Aging (2022).
- Biweekly fluctuations of neuropsychiatric symptoms according to the Neuropsychiatric Inventory: Erratic symptoms or scores?. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry (2022).
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