Atividades instrumentais da vida diária em pessoas com defeito cognitivo ligeiro

: avaliação baseada no desempenho

Abstract

Introduction: In developed countries, the global aging of the population is increasingly a social concern. As a consequence of this phenomenon, there has been a need for investment in resources, structures and research in the area. Various cognitive abilities change with age, in some cases these changes are greater than expected in normal aging. Thus, it is essential to study the decline in cognitive aging, in a normal and pathological capacity. Several studies have been exploring Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI). An essential criterion for this diagnosis is an assessment of functionality. Instruments such as UPSA have been increasingly used as a measure of functionality, based on performance. This study seeks to investigate, in a sample of the population with MCI, whether the presence of the variable depressive symptoms has a negative impact on functionality. Secondly, it is intended to verify the influence of memory and executive functions on functionality, in the same sample. Method: The sample for this study was composed of 34 subjects with MCI, aged between 65 and 89 years old. The following instruments were used to collect data: a sociodemographic questionnaire, selected tests that evaluated Memory and Executive Functions in Bateria de Lisboa para Estudos de Demências (BLAD), the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS-15) and the UCSD Performance-Based Skills Assessment (UPSA). Results: The results showed no significant correlation between depressive symptoms (GDS-15) and functionality (UPSA). Additionally, the results suggested that the variable with the highest predictive value of impairment in functionality was short-term memory. Conclusion: Given the literature correlation between impairment in functionality and depressive symptomatology, this hypothesis was tested. Depression is considered the most prevalent mental health problem in elders, often leading to loss of autonomy. The results found in this study did not show a significant correlation between functionality and depressive symptoms, thus not corroborating the findings in literature. In a second analysis, the results showed that short-term memory showed greater predictive power of performance in functionality, which is not in agreement with the results obtained in other studies that state that executive functions may have more influence on the performance of IADL and BADL’s than other cognitive domains.

Date of Award	23 Apr 2021
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Filipa Ribeiro (Supervisor)