Features of depression (paraphrased): 5 items
Each feature that is present is scored as 1 point.
depressive score =
= SUM(number of features present)
Features of dementia (paraphrased): 13 items
Each feature that is present is scored as 1 point. In the original scale each dementia item is scored -1 points.
dementia score =
= SUM(number of features present)
Interpretation:
• minimum depressive score: 0
• maximum depressive score: 5
• minimum dementia score: 0 (maximum if scoring with negative numbers)
• maximum dementia score: 13 (minimum score -13 if using negative numbers)
• A patient with pseudodementia will have a depressive score >= 1 and a dementia score of 0.
• A patient with dementia will have a dementia score >= 1 and a pseudodementia score of 0.
• A patient with both depression and dementia will have positive responses for both sets of questions.
