Jim who? Recall of national leaders by elderly people in three countries

Abstract The Organic Brain Syndrome scale (OBS) of the Brief Assessment Scale (BAS) was administered to 1202 elderly subjects in London, Mannheim, Sydney and Melbourne. Subjects' knowledge of current and last national leaders was assessed, and two methods of scoring the OBS were compared. Taking into account the degree of cognitive impairment found using seven items of the OBS were compared. Taking into account the degree of cognitive impairment found using seven items of the OBS other than the national leader item, knowledge of current leader was much more consistent across countries than was knowledge of last leader. When subjects were allocated an error point for failing to know either current or last leader, dementia prevalence measured by the OBS was consistently 5–6% less than that found when they were allocated an error point for failing to know both leaders. Future studies using the BAS should publish prevalence data for both scoring methods in order to permit comparison between studies.