Clinical Significance in Dementia Research: A Review of the Literature

The objective of this study was to provide a critical overview of the current approaches to measuring clinical significance in dementia research and to provide suggestions for future research. A systematic search was conducted of Medline and Embase for original, English-language, peer-reviewed articles published before July 2012. A total of 18 articles met the inclusion criteria, of which 13 used multiple approaches to measure clinical significance. In all, 5 articles used expert opinion as anchors; 4 also used distribution-based approaches. In all, 8 articles used Goal Attainment Scaling; 7 of these also relied on clinician-based impressions of change. Another 3 articles used only clinical global impressions of change, 1 article used changes in symptomatology, and another used the value from literature.
Source: American Journal of Alzheimer's Disease and Other Dementias - Category: Geriatrics Authors: Tags: Review Source Type: research