The Revised Hasegawa's Dementia Scale (HDS-R) - Evaluation of its Usefulness as a Screening Test for Dementia

• Published in: East Asian archives of psychiatry 1994-11, Vol.4 (2), p.20
• Main Authors: Imai, Yukimichi, Hasegawa, Kazui
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Dementia; Intelligence tests; Nursing homes; Patients; Success
• ISSN: 2078-9947; 2224-7041

Revised Hasegawa’s dementia scale (HDS-R), consisting of 9 simple questions with a maximum score of 30, was examined In its usefulness for screening age-associated dementia in a total of 157 subjects: 95 patients and 62 non-demented persons. The two groups were age-matched. Cronbach’s coefficient alpha was as high as 0.90 in HDS-R. In addition, the coefficient of correlation of each question’s score to the total score of other questions in the HDS-R was significantly high, ranging between 0.79 and 0.40. These findings proved that the HSD-R could satisfy the fundamental prerequisite for dementia screening tests: reliability in terms of internal consistency. Clinical applicability of the HSD-R was confirmed by the following two findings. (a) Significant differences were noted between the demented and non-demented groups in each question’s score total mean score and mean score by GDS-based severity. (b) Dementia could be most exactly discriminated from non-dementia with sensitivity of 0.90 and specificity of 0.82 at a cutoff point of 20/21. The coefficient of correlation of the HDS-R to the MMSE was as high as 0.94, proving the HDS-R to be valid in terms of compatibility with the established dementia screening test. In conclusion, the HDS-R can screen dementia at the highest conceivable accuracy and efficiency. It may also serve to assess the severity of dementia changing with time and the effect of pharmacotherapy and rehabilitation. Keywords: dementia, screening test, HDS-R, sensitivity, specificity