Performance Errors in Activities of Daily Living of Older Persons with Alzheimer Dementia

Abstract

This study aimed to examine the types and frequency of performance errors in the activities of daily living of older persons with Alzheimer dementia. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 41 caregivers caring for older persons with Alzheimer dementia. Activities of daily living were categorized according to the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) model, and performance error types were classified according to expert opinions. Descriptive statistics to analyze the frequency of each performance error and chi-square to analyze the difference in performance error by dementia grade were performed using SPSS 22.0. The most frequent performance errors of older persons with Alzheimer dementia were “difficulty in remembering where they put things” and “wearing clothes that are out of season,” in ICF code d650 and d540, respectively. The ICF codes where there was a significant difference in the presence or absence of performance errors according to the dementia grade were ICF d510, d520, and d640. In the future, it will be necessary to conduct a large-scale study on errors in performing activities of daily living to find critical errors in the discrimination between healthy older persons, older persons with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and older persons with dementia.