Longitudinal study reveals cognitive decline linked to heart failure and neuroleptics in nursing home residents, suggesting medical status rather than environment drives impairment.
Cognitive testing with the Dementia Rating Scale was performed serially over an 18-month period in 410 nursing home patients. The principal findings were: deterioration in patients with congestive failure but not cerebrovascular accident: continuous deterioration in organic mental syndrome cases in relation to initial severity; specific impairment of memory in patients on neuroleptics; and no evidence that the nursing home environment alone induced cognitive decline.
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Brown et al. (1993) studied this question.
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