Awareness in dementia: A review of assessment methods and measures

Abstract

A comprehensive range of literature on awareness in dementia published in peer-reviewed journals during the last 15 years was reviewed with the aim of extracting details of the methods and measurement instruments adopted for the purposes of assessing awareness. Assessment approaches fell into five categories: clinician rating methods, questionnaire-based methods, performance-based methods, phenomenological methods, and multidimensional or combined methods. Ranges of objects of awareness assessment were identified both within and across domains. Strengths and limitations of methods in each category were identified. Reasons for the inconclusive findings from research using the methods described here were considered, and suggestions for future directions were made.