Assessment of orientation: Relationship between informant report and direct measures

Although informant reports of everyday functioning are often used in dementia assessments, the actual correspondence between such indirect reports of functioning and actual performance has nor been examined. Orientation results on the Dementia Questionnaire for Mentally Retarded Persons were compared to those obtained in direct assessment of orientation of 138 adults with mental retardation. Fair to good agreement was found between informant report and direct assessment. However, for some orientation items, nonverbal Ia, cause of mental retardation, and age affected the level of agreement. Thus, both informant report-and direct measures of orientation are necessary in dementia assessments, and further work is needed on informant scale validation.