Iranian Journal of

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Background: Although several tools for evaluating and screening of cognitive status have been introduced, most of them are not applicable in Iranian elderly population because of cultural differences and high illiteracy rate. This study is report of "Brief Cognitive Assessment Tool"(BCAT) was developed as a cognitive status-evaluating test and reported psychometric characteristics.
Methods: the BCAT tool includes memory assessment using three words recall test with a rating similar to Mini-Cog and the functional status including "ability to dress", "ability to use the phone," " ability to manage own medications", among both two sexes and financial management capabilities in men and ability to prepare food in women. Functional rating is different in educated and non-educated people. Diagnosis of dementia is considered, when memory impairment is accompanied by the dysfunction. Eighty-six residents of a nursing home (41 men and 45 women) among who had inclusion and no had exclusion criteria also consent to participate were randomly enrolled. Concurrent validity was shown as correlation coefficient between the BCAT categorization and score of mini meAntal state examination (MMSE). Criterion validity, sensitivity and specificity of BCAT were evaluated based on global deterioration scale (GDS). Reliability of two raters results within two weeks was indicated by Kappa coefficient.
Results: The sensitivity and specificity and accuracy rate of the BCAT based the GDS was 88.6%, 82.6%, and 84.9%, respectively. The correlation between the MMSE score and results of the BCAT classifying was significant. The Kappa coefficient between the results of two raters was 81.1%.
Conclusion: It seems that the BCAT has good psychometric properties to recognize cognitive impairment among Iranian older adults.

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Background: Elderly people need more receiving health services. Planning to provide services at regional and national levels requires information about the health status of the elderly. This study was performed to assess the health status of East Azarbaijan province.
Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 436 subjects were enrolled (180 men and 258 women) aged ≥ 60 years using multi-level proportioned cluster Random sampling from 19 cities of the province.
Data was collected by a demographic questionnaire , measuring  anthropometric characteristics, and blood pressure and  using "Mini  Nutritional Assessment" ,”Geriatric Depression Scale-15 ", “Katz’s Activity of daily living”,  and "Lawton’s Instrumental activities of daily living”.
Results: The mean age of the participants was 69.31 years.  The self-reported prevalence of diabetes was 34.2%. The prevalence of hypertension in the elderly was 52.5%. The most common complaint of the participants was pain (60.9%). Totally, 46.9% had a difficulty in walking, 44.3% visually impaired, and 26.4% suffered from hearing impairment. Moreover, 44.8% of sleep disorders was found. Also 26% of the participants had depressed mood.
Conclusion: Elderly residents of East Azerbaijan province, has probably a better health status than the average Iranian elderly. However, there is a high prevalence of hypertension and diabetes among older adults of this province that need to more pay attention.