Abstract

Objectives: Communication enables humans to exercise their rights. Dementia research consistently shows that communication skills decrease as the disease progresses. Nonverbal communication abilities decline more slowly than verbal skills and often become more important as the disease advances. However, resources and deficits in nonverbal and verbal communication behavior differ between persons with dementia and contexts. Knebel et al. proposed the observational assessment tool CODEM_amb that we believe to be the first standardized instrument to differentiate between content-related and relationship aspects of nonverbal communication behavior. Until now, evaluations of CODEM_amb have been exploratory and used small samples.

Method: We therefore retested the psychometric criteria of CODEM_amb in persons with a suspected dementia in an ambulatory setting. Data was drawn from 326 older adults (aged 52 − 91) during routine screening in Germany.

Results: Our findings support the three-factorial structure of CODEM_amb. Internal consistency of the overall scale and the three subscales of CODEM_amb was high. Correlations with CERAD-NP subscales revealed similarities to CODEM_amb, indicating sufficient convergent validity. Finally, CODEM_amb was able to differentiate between persons according to the stage of their disease.

Conclusion: CODEM_amb is a theoretically based, reliable and valid observational assessment tool and its use in ambulatory settings can help foster individual, person-centered communication by identifying the resources of people with dementia, thereby empowering them in rights-exercising situations.

摘要

目标：沟通使人类能够行使他们的权利。痴呆症研究一致表明，随着疾病的进展，沟通技巧会下降。非语言沟通能力比语言技能下降得更慢，并且随着疾病的进展往往变得更加重要。然而，非语言和语言交流行为的资源和缺陷因痴呆症患者和环境而异。Knebel 等人。提出了观察评估工具 CODEM _amb，我们认为它是第一个区分非语言交流行为的内容相关和关系方面的标准化工具。到目前为止，CODEM _amb的评估一直是探索性的，并使用了小样本。

方法：因此，我们在门诊环境中对疑似痴呆症患者重新测试了 CODEM _{amb的心理测量标准。}数据来自德国常规筛查期间的 326 名老年人（52-91 岁）。

结果：我们的研究结果支持 CODEM _amb的三因子结构。_{CODEM amb}总体量表与三个分量表的内部一致性较高。与 CERAD-NP 子量表的相关性揭示了与 CODEM _{amb 的相似性，}表明足够的收敛有效性。最后，CODEM _amb能够根据疾病的阶段区分不同的人。

结论： CODEM _amb是一种基于理论、可靠且有效的观察评估工具，其在门诊环境中的使用可以通过识别痴呆症患者的资源来帮助促进以人为本的个体沟通，从而在行使权利的情况下赋予他们权力。