Dementia Screening Questionnaire for Individuals with Intellectual Disabilities

The DSQIID screens for dementia in adults with intellectual disabilities, where standard cognitive tests are hard to interpret because a person's baseline abilities already differ from the general population. It sidesteps that by asking a caregiver what has changed, rather than testing the person directly.

Its 53 items came from qualitative interviews with carers of adults with Down's syndrome who had developed dementia — so the questions describe what those families actually noticed. Areas covered include memory loss, confusion, loss of daily living skills, social withdrawal, behavioural and psychological changes, sleep disturbance, and speech changes. One section asks explicitly comparative questions, such as whether the person speaks or signs less than before. It screens; it does not diagnose.

• Original Publication: Deb et al. (2007)

Licensing Notes: The questionnaire is posted for free download on several sites.

Learn More: The published screening cut-off is 20 or above, giving sensitivity of 0.92 and specificity of 0.97 in the original validation.