Neuropsychiatric symptoms in predementia stages and the degree of congruence between the close informant and patient ratings

This Master's thesis deals with neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS) in the early stages of neurodegenerative diseases with an emphasis on Alzheimer's disease (AD). It aims to introduce these symptoms and their contexts and, within the framework of the research, to describe the prevalence and severity of NPS and to compare the informant- and self-rating of NPS in the Mild Behavioral Impairment-Checklist (MBI-C). Attention is focused on the total MBI-C scores but also on the individual domains of the NPS. A quantitative research is conducted on a sample of 70 dyads of patients and their informants; patients with subjective cognitive decline and mild cognitive impairment were included. The performed statistical analyses prove that patients and their informants differ from each other in the assessment of NPS in the total score of the MBI-C and in the impulse dyscontrol domain. These differences are also correlated with the degree of cognitive deficit of the patient. Evaluation of NPS by both the patient and informant and evaluation of the degree of their consistency might therefore be useful and important for predicting the progression of the neurodegenerative disease. However, this assumption will need to be verified in further research, the possibilities of which are also discussed in the thesis