Summary

Background: Geriatric assessment (GA) in the elderly is vitally important for determining the optimal management for patients and the appropriate source of its financing. The search for a novel and compact tool stemmed from the clumsiness and complexity of the traditional instruments in scoring and interpretation.

Objectives: To assess the design, application and validity and reliability of a new tool for rapid geriatric assessment in the elderly.

Methods: We measured activities of daily living (ADL) scores using the new tool compared with a well-known (Barthel) index in a population study of 90 elderly subjects (20 males and 70 females) in four long-term care departments of a governmental geriatric center, representing a spectrum of subjects (independent, frail, mentally exhausted, and totally dependent).

Results: There was a good correlation between the two tools, as demonstrated by the correlation curve. The new test was found to be reliable and valid according to the Cronbach and Pearson indexes. Importantly, it took a mean of 5 minutes to complete compared to 20–30 minutes with the traditional tests. The interpretation is simple, unlike the complexity of the other tools.

Conclusions: The new tool for rapid geriatric assessment is able to evaluate the same and additional parameters measured by traditional tests and does so in much less time with equivalent validity and reliability.