The Korean version of the neuropsychiatric inventory: A scoring tool for neuropsychiatric disturbance in dementia patients

The Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI) is a standardized, validated, and reli able tool to assess neuropsychiatric derangements in dementia patients. The aim of this study is to develop the Korean Version of the NPI (K-NPI) and to test its reliability and usefulness in dementia patients. The subjects w ere 49 normal controls and 92 patients with Alzheimer's disease (43), vascu lar dementia (32), frontotemporal lobar degeneration ((11), and other cause s (6). Their caregivers familiar with the subjects' everyday behavior were interviewed with the K-NPI. In a subgroup (29/141)) of the caregivers, the K-NPI was repeated for test-retest reliability, average of 23.1 days after the initial test. Prevalence rates of 12 behavioral domains in dementia pat ients were comparable to those of the original NPI; apathy was the most com mon and hallucination was the least common behavior. Total K-NPI scores cor related positively with dementia severity assessed with the Korean Mini-Men tal State Examination. Test-retest reliabilities of frequencies and severit ies of all subscales were significantly high. Depression, anxiety, apathy, irritability, night-time behavior, and eating change were identified at ver y low rates in normal controls and were significantly less than those in de mentia patients (p<0.001). The K-NPI, whose reliability and competency are comparable to those of the original version, may be a reliable and useful t ool for measuring neuropsychiatric disturbances in Korean dementia patients .