Identifying a Short Functional Disability Screen for Older Persons

Transcription

1 Journal of Gerontology: MEDICAL SCIENCES 2000, Vol. 55A, No. 12, M750 M756 Copyright 2000 by The Gerontological Society of America Identifying a Short Functional Disability Screen for Older Persons Debra Saliba, 1,2,3 Maria Orlando, 3 Neil S. Wenger, 3,4 Ron D. Hays, 3,4 and Laurence Z. Rubenstein 1,2,3 1 Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Center, VA Greater Los Angeles Health Care System, California. 2 Department of Medicine, University of California Los Angeles Multicampus Program in Geriatrics. 3 RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, California. 4 University of California Los Angeles Division of General Internal Medicine & Health Services Research. Background. Disability in instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs) or activities of daily living (ADLs) is an indicator of health risk. The inclusion of these items in population screens may be limited by variation in item performance across gender and age groups. Further, identification of shortened lists may encourage inclusion of these items in screens. Methods. We applied item response theory (IRT) methods to assess the responses of 9865 community-dwelling elders in the 1993 Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey to 11 IADL/ADL items. Items were classified as receive help/ not receive help for the overall population and stratified by age and gender. We assessed the same IADL/ADL items using responses classified as difficulty/no difficulty. After eliminating items that performed poorly, we performed allsubsets analyses to identify abbreviated sets of items that would select the highest proportion of persons with IADL/ ADL disability. Results. Responses classified in receive help format showed consistency by gender and age group. Changing the response classification to difficulty/no difficulty influenced the reported order and relationship of IADL/ADL items. Receipt of help for any one of five items shopping, doing light housework, walking, bathing, or managing finances identified 93% of individuals receiving help with any IADL/ADL. A slightly different set of five items walking, shopping, transferring, doing light housework, or bathing identified 91% of persons reporting difficulty with any IADL or ADL. Conclusions. The relationship of IADL and ADL items to the underlying construct of disability was similar for men and women. The relationship was also similar for oldest-old and younger-old individuals. This study also identified abbreviated lists of disability items that can be used to efficiently screen community-dwelling elders for the presence of IADL/ADL disability. D ISABILITY in basic activities of daily living (ADLs) and instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs) (1 3) predicts future functional decline, institutionalization, and death (4 10). Most IADL/ADL lists used in surveys contain 10 to 15 items, and many item responses require follow-up questions, for example, identifying task modification (11) and identifying the need for human assistance. Thus, a full set of IADL/ADL items can be cumbersome to incorporate in surveys. Having an efficient list of IADL and ADL items could facilitate consideration of disabled and high-risk individuals in population-based rapid health screens and individual risk assessments (6,12 15). Ideally, a screening instrument should perform similarly in different subgroups of the targeted population. However, the self-reported difficulty of IADL/ADL items may vary by gender because of traditional differences in role function (16,17). For example, Lawton (3) reported that food preparation, laundry, and housekeeping failed to form an ordered Guttman scale for men. Even if the question clarifies whether nonperformance is related to health, the hierarchy of IADL and ADL performance may vary by gender. Men are more likely than women to attribute receiving assistance with household tasks and shopping to traditional role assignment rather than to health (17). This may lead to underreporting of health-related disability because a significant percentage of men who attribute nonperformance to traditional division of labor have morbidity levels that suggest physical inability to perform the task (17). Several findings also raise concern about whether the same screening instrument can be used for oldest-old individuals as is used for younger-old individuals. The prevalence of self-reported difficulty and self-reported need for help varies by age (18). While the prevalence of disability generally increases with age, the extent of decline varies among activities, and the hierarchical order of IADL items has been shown to vary between age subgroups (6). In addition, a recent meta-analysis showed that variation in the wording of non-iadl/adl global health assessment questions results in different response distributions when comparing old-old to young-old groups (19). Thus, any abbreviated IADL/ADL list would have to consider whether items would perform differently for different gender or age categories. Item wording, including the choice of how to dichotomize responses, might also influence the selection of IADL/ ADL items for a screening instrument. The response categories used to assess IADL/ADL limitations include difficulty versus no difficulty, able versus not able, receive help ver- M750

2 SHORT FUNCTIONAL DISABILITY SCREEN M751 sus not receive help, and does versus does not do. The choice of item wording and response categories can lead to different prevalence and outcome estimates across studies and in the same population (20 23). In addition, individual IADL/ADL items differ in the extent to which they vary across response categories (18,24). These variations affect the interpretation of IADL/ADL items and make comparison of ordered lists difficult. Analytic approaches to examining item performance include Guttman scaling and item response theory (IRT) methods. Guttman scaling tests the hierarchical relationship of items and has been used to evaluate IADL/ADL item performance (6,12,15). Guttman scaling is a deterministic model and assumes all items are equally related to the measured construct (25). The IRT methodology, on the other hand, is probabilistic and can allow for the possibility that items may be differentially related to the underlying construct. In the case of IADL and ADL items, IRT analysis estimates the probability of reporting inability to perform an activity as a function of the respondent s degree of disability. IRT methods have been applied to National Long Term Care Survey data to show that a count of IADL/ADL deficits can summarize individual disability (26). To determine which IADL/ADL items were most appropriate to use in a general population-screening instrument, this study applied IRT methods to a representative community sample. This study estimated the relationship of each IADL/ADL item to the underlying construct of disability, examined the stability of the item properties across gender and age subgroups, and then identified efficient lists for IADL/ADL screening. METHODS We applied IRT methods to data in the 1993 Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey (MCBS) public use files to (i) examine item performance for receipt of help with 11 IADL/ADL items, (ii) examine the relationship of each item to overall IADL/ADL disability for men compared with women, and (iii) examine the properties of these items for persons aged 85 or older compared with persons aged 65 to 84 years. We repeated steps i through iii using a common alternate approach to classifying responses difficulty versus no difficulty. After eliminating items that performed poorly, we performed a best-subsets analysis to identify abbreviated sets of receive help items that would select the highest proportion of persons receiving assistance. We repeated the best-subset analysis for the difficulty list. MCBS The MCBS surveys a representative sample of all Medicare enrollees. We restricted our analysis to the 9865 community-dwelling respondents who were aged 65 or older in 1993 (i.e., we excluded MCBS respondents who were institutionalized or aged less than 65 years). Because we wanted to identify all community-dwelling elders with disability, we included proxy respondents. The MCBS oversampled persons age 85 and older, providing an opportunity to assess responses for this oldest-old group. The MCBS included five IADL and six ADL questions that asked because of a health or physical problem (do you/ does study participant) have any difficulty...? : using the telephone, doing light housework, preparing own meals, shopping for personal items (such as toilet items or medicines), managing money, bathing or showering, dressing, eating, getting in or out of bed or chairs, walking across room, and using the toilet. The questions did not include an explicit time frame but were phrased in the present tense. Thus, a report of difficulty could reflect temporary/acute or chronic disability. The response options included yes, no, doesn t do. Respondents answering doesn t do were asked if this was for a health-related reason. Respondents reporting difficulty were asked if help was received from another person. We classified standby assistance as receive help (2). We classified item responses in two different ways: difficulty versus no difficulty and receive help versus not receive help. We classified persons who reported difficulty (with or without receipt of help) or nonperformance for health-related reasons as having difficulty. We classified persons who reported difficulty resulting in receipt of help or nonperformance for health-related reasons as receiving help. For the remaining analyses, the variable difficulty refers to any reported difficulty or nonperformance for a health reason and receive help refers to any reported receipt of human help or nonperformance for a health reason. IRT Analysis We used IRT methodology to assess the relationship of each of the 11 IADL/ADL items to the underlying construct of disability (i.e., to overall IADL/ADL disability). The IRT two-parameter logistic (2PL) model yields an item characteristic curve (ICC) that is described by the location (b) and slope (a) parameters. The b parameter is the point along the ICC at which the probability of a positive response for a dichotomous item is 50%. The larger the location parameter, the more of the measured construct a respondent must have to endorse that item. The a parameter represents the slope of the ICC at the value of the location parameter and indicates the extent to which the item is related to the underlying construct. A steeper slope indicates a closer relationship to the construct. Differential slopes for items indicate that the items are not uniformly related to the measured construct. Because IRT examines the relationship of individual s responses to each IADL/ADL item, we applied IRT methods to the actual study sample and did not weight the data to reflect the larger population. We compared the fit of the 2PL model with that of a 1PL model that assumes all items are equally related to the underlying construct (i.e., have the same slope) using the chi-square difference test. We selected a model to fit separately for the identified gender and age subgroups and calibrated the items for each subgroup. Parallel analyses were performed for the two types of response coding, difficulty versus receive help. The results of the two coding and four subgroup analyses were used to assess which items were comparable across subgroups and were therefore appropriate for inclusion in a general population screen. All-Subsets Analyses After eliminating any items whose slope indicated poor performance for identifying overall IADL/ADL disability,

3 M752 SALIBA ET AL. Difficulty With or Without Help Table 1. Persons Reporting Difficulty or Receiving Help % Reporting (n) % Classified as (n) Difficulty, Receives Help Doesn t Do for Health- Related Reason Difficulty or Can t Do for Health Reason Receives Help or Can t Do for Health Reason IADL Shopping 11 (1057) 9 (901) 7 (703) 18 (1760) 16 (1604) Doing light housework 8 (831) 6 (619) 6 (553) 14 (1384) 12 (1172) Managing finances 5 (522) 5 (445) 4 (422) 10 (944) 9 (867) Preparing meals 7 (660) 5 (505) 5 (482) 12 (1142) 10 (987) Using the telephone 8 (771) 3 (348) 2 (164) 10 (935) 5 (512) Any IADL 20 (1998) 15 (1464) 10 (995) 26 (2529) 21 (2085) ADL Bathing 14 (1340) 7 (733) 0.7 (72) 14 (1412) 8 (805) Dressing 9 (859) 6 (544) 0.4 (43) 9 (902) 6 (587) Transferring 16 (1545) 4 (424) 0.4 (42) 16 (1587) 5 (466) Using the toilet 6 (636) 2 (228) 0.3 (30) 7 (666) 3 (258) Walking across room 26 (2527) 5 (483) 2 (157) 27 (2684) 7 (640) Feeding self 3 (324) 1 (132) 0.2 (15) 4 (339) 2 (147) Any ADL 32 (3150) 11 (1073) 2 (193) 32 (3189) 12 (1137) Notes: 1993 MCBS community-dwelling population (n 9865). ADL activity of daily living; IADL instrumental activity of daily living. Unweighted frequencies; % total does not equal 100 due to rounding. we performed all-subsets analyses to select the best abbreviated lists. Specifically, we created a minimum prediction rule to identify the combination of disability items that identified the highest proportion of subjects with any IADL/ ADL disability. We identified all possible combinations of the IADL/ADL items and the percent of persons reporting any IADL or ADL disability that each combination identified. We thus considered list lengths ranging from singleitem length to all- item length. We used MCBS cross-sectional weights to estimate the percent of the disabled population identified. RESULTS Respondents mean age was 76 (range ); 14.5% of the sample was aged 85 or older; 41% of the sample was male. Proxies completed 10.8% of surveys. In Table 1, columns 2 through 4 show the proportion of people choosing each IADL/ADL response category. When we classified respondents according to difficulty versus no difficulty (column 5), 25.6% and 32.3% had difficulty with any IADL and any ADL, respectively. When we classified respondents according to receive help versus not receive help (column 6), 21.1% and 11.5% received help with any IADL and any ADL, respectively. The 2PL model fit to the entire sample, as measured by the chi square goodness-of-fit statistic, was better than the 1PL model. Comparing the 2PL model to the 1PL model, the reduction in the chi-square was 17% [ 2 (10) 487, p.001] for the receive help list and was 19% [ 2 (10) 812, p.001] for the difficulty list. The 2PL slope estimates, a, represented a wide range ( for receive help and for difficulty) indicating that the slopes could not be assumed to be equal. We concluded that the 2PL model most accurately characterized the data and we used the 2PL model in subsequent analyses. Table 2, column 1 shows the item order, according to the location parameter, b (column 3), for the 11 receive help items in the overall population. When men (columns 4 6) were compared with women (column 7 9), the ranges of both the location and slope parameters were similar. The item order differed only slightly. Only walking and using the telephone moved in relative ranking. Notably, although walking precedes managing finances for women, the location parameters (b) are essentially the same for walking (b 1.70) and managing finances (b 1.72). Table 3 compares IADL/ADL receive help items for the two age groups. As with gender, the change in item order for 65- to 84-year-old persons was based on a very small difference in b: dressing, b 1.91; walking, b 1.93; and paying bills, b These similar b values indicate that for 65- to 84-year-old persons, these three items assess almost the same degree of disability, while the differing a values indicate differing relationships to the underlying construct of disability. For the overall population, the item order for receive help (Table 2, column 1) differed from that for difficulty (Table 4, column 1). The location parameters for receive help ranged from 1.1 to 2.61 compared with to 2.61 for difficulty, indicating that the receive help coding assessed a narrower range of disability. Table 4, columns 4 and 6 show the order of difficulty items by gender. Although the item order changed for men compared with women, the change in relative rank of several items is based on small differences in b: doing light housework, b 1.4; transferring, b 1.41; and bathing, b Using the toilet also moved in relative ranking. Thus, the number of difficulty items that changed in position was slightly greater than the number of receive help items that moved. The difficulty list also evidenced less consistency in item order across age groups than did the receive help list. We reviewed the item parameters from the overall population and subgroup calibrations to identify items with a weak relationship to the underlying construct of disability (i.e., low slope). In both the receive help coding and the dif-

4 SHORT FUNCTIONAL DISABILITY SCREEN M753 Table 2. Receiving Help With IADLs and ADLs: Item Order Overall Population Males Females Item Order a b Item Order a b Item Order a b Shopping Shopping Shopping Doing light housework Doing light housework Doing light housework Preparing meals Preparing meals Preparing meals Bathing Bathing Bathing Managing finances Managing finances Walking Walking Dressing Managing finances Dressing Walking Dressing Transferring Transferring Transferring Using the toilet Using the telephone Using the toilet Using the telephone Using the toilet Using the telephone Feeding self Feeding self Feeding self Notes: Item order based on item response theory analysis (two-parameter logistic model). Bold print highlights the items selected for five-item receive help screener. a slope parameter; b location parameter. IADLs instrumental activities of daily living; ADLs activities of daily living. Table 3. Receiving Help With IADLs and ADLs: Order by Age Group Item Order, Aged a b Item Order, Aged 85 or Older a b Shopping Shopping Doing light housework Doing light housework Preparing meals Preparing meals Bathing Bathing Dressing Managing finances Walking Walking Managing finances Dressing Transferring Transferring Using the toilet Using the telephone Using the telephone Using the toilet Feeding self Feeding self Notes: Order by age group based on item response theory analysis (two-parameter logistic model). Bold print highlights the items selected for the five-item receive help screener. a slope parameter; b location parameter. IADLs instrumental activities of daily living; ADLs activities of daily living. ficulty coding, using the telephone had a substantially lower slope than other items in the overall population and in several subgroup calibrations. We therefore eliminated using the telephone as a candidate item for an abbreviated screener. We performed all-subsets analyses separately for the receive help coding and the difficulty coding using the remaining 10 items. For five potential list lengths, Table 5 presents the list that identifies the most persons endorsing any of the 10 items and the percentage of persons identified. The percentage of disabled persons endorsing any of 11 items, that is, the 10-item list plus telephone, is also presented. (Telephone was not a candidate screening question.) For each potential list length presented, the receive help list and the difficulty list differ by at least one item. The most efficient list of items for identifying more than 90% of persons receiving help with IADL/ADL was shopping, doing light housework, walking, bathing, and managing finances. This list identified 93% of persons receiving help with any of 11 IADL/ADL items and 97% of persons receiving help with any of the 10 items most closely related to the construct of disability (i.e., a list that excludes using the telephone). The efficient list of items for identifying more than 90% of persons reporting difficulty was walking, shopping, transferring, doing light housework, and bathing. This list identified 91% of persons reporting difficulty with any of 11 IADL/ADL items and 96% of persons reporting difficulty with the IADL/ADL list that excludes using the telephone. DISCUSSION This study examined IADL/ADL item performance and potential differences in response patterns among population subgroups in order to identify candidate IADL/ADL items for a screening survey. Ten IADL/ADL items consistently related to overall disability for community-dwelling older persons, men and women, and oldest-old individuals. We used these 10 disability items to identify and test abbreviated IADL/ADL lists, ranging from 1 to 5 items in length, which can be used to screen persons aged 65 and older for IADL/ADL disability. The list differed slightly depending on whether responses were classified as receive help or difficulty. We used IRT methods to clarify the relationship of each IADL/ADL item to overall IADL/ADL disability. Notably, the IRT model that allowed IADL/ADL items to display different relationships to the underlying construct of disability performed better than a model that assumed that each item was equally related to disability. The IRT-derived order for the receive help ADL items (e.g., bathing first and feeding last) is consistent with prior Guttman-based proposed orders for ADL (2,25). A commonly accepted IADL order is not available for comparison since IADL order has been less consistent across studies (3,6). The similar patterns of receive help items for men and women in our analysis supports the creation of a single screening instrument for both groups. The male and female subgroups demonstrated similar item order when that order was determined by each item s relationship to overall IADL/ADL disability. For both men and women, IADL and ADL integrate physical and cognitive abilities (12,24) and represent self-maintenance tasks important for living independently (27). Qualifying IADL nonperformance as

5 M754 SALIBA ET AL. Table 4. Difficulty With IADLs and ADLs: Item Order Overall Population Males Females Aged Aged 85 or Older Item Order a b Item Order b Item Order b Item Order b Item Order b Walking Walking Walking Walking Walking 0.01 Shopping Shopping 1.22 Shopping Shopping 1.33 Shopping Bathing Doing light housework 1.4 Bathing 1.17 Transferring 1.43 Bathing 0.5 Transferring Transferring 1.41 Transferring 1.17 Bathing 1.5 Doing light housework Doing light housework Bathing 1.43 Doing light housework 1.21 Doing light housework 1.52 Preparing meals Preparing meals Preparing meals 1.48 Preparing meals 1.36 Preparing meals 1.63 Transferring Dressing Dressing 1.64 Dressing 1.59 Dressing 1.79 Managing finances Managing finances Managing finances 1.72 Using the toilet 1.74 Using the toilet 2.08 Dressing Using the toilet Using the telephone 1.8 Managing finances 1.75 Managing finances 2.11 Using the telephone 1.19 Using the telephone Using the toilet 2.07 Using the telephone 2.15 Using the telephone 2.55 Using the toilet 1.28 Feeding self Feeding self 2.44 Feeding self 2.64 Feeding self 2.88 Feeding self 1.92 Notes: Item order based on item response theory analysis (two-parameter logistic model). Bold print highlights the items selected for five-item difficulty screener. a slope parameter; b location parameter. IADLs instrumental activities of daily living; ADLs activities of daily living. health-related decreases the misattribution of preferred or traditional nonperformance to disability. Also, environmental factors (e.g., marital status) and/or comorbidity may be more important determinants of dependency than gender alone (17). The overall order and performance of receive help items also were similar for persons aged 65 to 84 years compared with persons aged 85 and older. Importantly, differences in the order of several items were determined by very small differences in location parameters. Failure to consider the actual parameter values might have led to an overexaggeration of the change in item order. Such slight differences may explain age-based inconsistencies in other studies (6). Item performance and overall order differed for items coded as receive help compared with items coded as difficulty. This difference supports contentions that difficulty responses complement help responses (23,24), that response classification influences item order (26,28,29), and that difficulty is not a simple midpoint value on a scale extending from no difficulty to receive help (20). Differentiating difficulty from receive help provides a different and more complete characterization of disability (11). Our study shows that this difference stems from more than differences in point prevalence (25), and that difficulty and receive help vary in their relationship to the underlying construct of disability for different population subgroups. Table 5. Most Efficient Lists A. Receive Help 1 Item 2 Items 3 Items 4 Items 5 Items Shopping Shopping Shopping Shopping Shopping Doing light housework Doing light housework Doing light housework Doing light housework Walking Walking Walking Managing finances Managing finances Bathing 11 items items Percentage of those identified who receive help with any of the following 11 items: shopping, doing light housework, managing finances, preparing meals, using the telephone, bathing, dressing, transferring, using the toilet, walking across the room, or feeding self. 10 items 11-item list excluding using the telephone. B. Difficulty 1 Item 2 Items 3 Items 4 Items 5 Items Walking Walking Walking Walking Walking Shopping Shopping Shopping Shopping Transferring Transferring Transferring Doing light housework Doing light housework Bathing 11 items items Percentage of those identified who reported difficulty with any of the 11-item list. 10 items 11-item list excluding using the telephone.

6 SHORT FUNCTIONAL DISABILITY SCREEN M755 After reviewing item performance, we eliminated using the telephone from consideration for the abbreviated screening instrument. Using the telephone has been problematic in other studies. Fillenbaum (6) found that using the telephone failed to load on the same factor as five other IADL items. When Longitudinal Study on Aging respondents identified the underlying condition causing difficulty with specific tasks, 53% selected hearing/vision problems as the cause for difficulty using the telephone, a markedly different explanation from that given for other IADLs (30). In addition, respondents may be considering different embedded tasks, for example, answering the phone, reaching the phone, placing calls, recalling numbers, using a written directory, and using directory assistance (24). After excluding using the telephone as a screening item, we identified efficient lists for disability screening. The lists in Table 5 serve as a resource for selecting an abbreviated list to screen for IADL and ADL disability. The lists range in length from a single item shopping that identified 69% of persons who received help with any of 11 IADL/ ADL items, to five items shopping, doing light housework, walking, bathing, and managing finances that identified 93%. Thus, the table illustrates the potential effect that adding or subtracting items has on the ability to identify all persons with IADL/ADL disability. As an example, a query about receiving help with shopping might be supplemented by a query about doing light housework. The addition of this one item would increase detection of IADL/ ADL disability by 9%. The MCBS format and content may have influenced our results. The MCBS asked if the respondent received help, not if the respondent needed help. Unmet need could explain some of the difference between having difficulty and receiving help. However, unmet need could also lessen the difference because assistive devices can avert the need for assistance, and unmet need for these devices may hasten dependency. Despite these potential resource issues, the receive help response format is a common metric for ADL scales, including the original classification (2). The disability items do not include ability to arrange transportation or to manage medications. The ability to manage medications (6) and transportation (6,15) has been found to have a questionable relationship to other IADL items. Women are more likely than men to attribute nonperformance of transportation to traditional role performance (17). An elder may fail to recognize or admit when health prevents the performance of a task. Such underreporting, if influenced by gender-based preferences (17), would tend to increase the differences in item performance between men and women. Because our analyses found no important gender differences, possible underreporting does not alter our conclusion that men and women can be assessed with the same IADL/ADL screen. We investigated variation only by gender and age. Cultural differences in IADL may be significant (6,31). Unfortunately, the MCBS data did not allow us to ascertain whether cultural differences influence IADL/ADL performance. Future studies should examine item performance across ethnic groups and cultures. Our analyses included proxy responses. Proxy and respondent estimation of overall disability may differ (32). However, it is not clear that these differences would alter the relationship between the items. On a practical level, we wanted to select items for a disability survey. In the absence of direct observation, proxy responses are needed to avoid excluding many subjects with severe disability (33). We performed a population-based analysis to identify short lists useful for rapid screening. Abbreviated lists may fail to identify all IADL/ADL disabilities and may miss smaller areas of dysfunction within an item. Not all persons follow the same path to disability, and the underlying cause of disability (e.g., dementia vs stroke) may differentially affect individual performance of specific tasks (25). Likewise, our findings related to gender performance do not obviate the need for individualized resource planning that considers traditional role function (17). Conclusions IADL/ADL disability for men, women, and oldest-old individuals can be correctly classified using the same survey. Five IADL/ADL items identified 93% of persons that receive help with any IADL or ADL, while a slightly different five items identified 91% of persons that have difficulty with any IADL or ADL. The abbreviated lists may facilitate the inclusion of IADL/ADL items in more settings. These abbreviated lists can be used with confidence that the items relate to overall IADL/ADL disability in community-dwelling elders. Acknowledgments Supported by a contract from Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Global Outcomes Research, Dr. Saliba is a recipient of a UCLA Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center Career Development Award AG We thank David Reuben for his review of the manuscript. We also thank Lisa Wong and Yingying Ma for programming assistance and Patty Smith for her assistance in manuscript preparation. The ACOVE research team that encouraged the development of this work includes David Solomon, Robert Brook, Roy Young, Paul Shekelle, John Schnelle, Catherine MacLean, Elizabeth Sloss, Caren Kamberg, and Carol Roth. Address correspondence to Debra Saliba, MD, MPH, RAND, 1700 Main Street, Santa Monica, CA. saliba@rand.org References 1. Staff of The Benjamin Rose Hospital. Multidisciplinary studies of illness in aged persons: II. 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