Usefulness of the Clinical Dementia Rating scale in screening for dementia.

The Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR) scale is a qualitative staging instrument that has traditionally been used for assessing the severity of dementia. We used it for screening dementia in a population study of 75-, 80-, and 85-year-old people. The modified CDR scale was easy to establish and it proved to be useful in screening dementia. A more thorough examination is needed in the second phase to identify the false positives. The sensitivity of the CDR scale was 95% and the specificity 94%.