ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to examine whether thehypertensive patients could be included in standardizing the Koreanversion of Dementia Rating Scale (K-DRS). Thus, the K-DRS wasadministered to 100 healthy elderly persons and 105 hypertensivepatients who were from 55 to 84 years old. There were nosignificant differences between the two groups in the total scoreand sub-test scores. At the same time, there was no differencebetween the two groups in frequency of dementia occurrenceaccording to the K-DRS criteria. The findings suggested that theelderly people with hypertension should be included in the K-DRSstandardization. However, the frequency of dementia occurrence forthe current sample was much higher than the traditionally acceptedfrequency. This issue was discussed in the context of theecological validity for the elderly Koreans.