Cognitive predictors of resistiveness in dementia patients

Resistiveness to physical care among-patients with dementia is a common and bur densome problem. Forty-nine nursing home residents with dementia were administered the Mini-Mental State Exam (MMSE) and the Royall Executive Int erview (EXIT), a specific test of frontal-subcortical function. Nurses rate d resistiveness on every shift for 3 days. Correlation with resistiveness r atings was stronger for the EXIT (r = 0.73) than for the MMSE (r = -0.46); logistic modeling found the EXIT to be a strong independent predictor of re sistiveness. Executive dysfunction as measured by the EXIT is a major deter minant of resistiveness to care in long-term care residents with dementia, possibly as a result of such patients' tendency toward inertia.