Table 1.

Summary of clinical assessment scales for neuropsychiatric symptoms

Measured symptoms	Scale	Applicable population	Scale description
Delusions, hallucinations, anxiety, agitation, euphoria, disinhibition, irritability, apathy, aberrant motor behavior, sleep and eating disturbance	Neuropsychiatric Inventory	Generally applicable	Assessment of broader psychopathology; Collect information that may distinguish the different causes of dementia.
Paranoid and delusional ideation, hallucinations, activity disturbances, aggressiveness, diurnal rhythm disturbances, affective disturbances, anxieties and phobias	Behavioral Pathology in Alzheimer’s disease rating scale	AD	Specifically for patients with AD, excluding the effects of cognitive impairment on measurement.
Anxiety, depression, aberrant motor behavior, delusions and hallucinations, disturbance of consciousness	Behavior Rating Scale for Dementia	AD	Detailed content; High variability and sensitivity
Psychotic disorders, mood disorders, substance use disorders, anxiety disorders, etc	Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders	Generally applicable	The scale included multidimensional and single-dimensional assessments. There were three self-assessment versions: the adult, the child/adolescent, and the parent/guardian.
Mental health, walking, eating, diurnal rhythm, aggressive behavior, sexual behavior, incontinence, individual behavioral abnormalities	Present Behavioral Examination	Generally applicable	Interviews were conducted with primary caregivers for patients with dementia or other neuropsychiatric disorders. It assesses behavior over the preceding 4 weeks.
Motor, intellectual and emotional functions and different symptoms characteristic for dementia.	Gottfries–Brane–Steen scale	Generally applicable	It can measure changes in dementia symptoms over a certain amount of time and evaluate the effect of treatment.
Apathy (Unidimension)	Apathy Evaluation Scale	AD/PD/ stroke	Three versions of the AES (clinician, informant, and self-rated) were used to evaluate the emotional apathy of patients in the past 4 weeks.
	Dementia Apathy Interview and Rating	AD	Attempt to differentiate limited activity and engagement due to lack of interest from the inability or longstanding, premorbid personality traits through question construction, and interview format.
	Apathy Inventory	AD/PD/MCI	It consists of two sets of questionnaires, one for caregivers and the other for patient-based assessments. Each problem involves frequency and severity.
Apathy (Multidimension)	Dimensional Apathy Scale	Generally applicable	A comprehensive and robust measure of multidimensional apathy
	Lille Apathy Rating Scale	PD	The scale is based on a structured interview, including 33 items, divided into nine domains. Responses are scored on a dichotomous scale.
	Apathy Motivation Index	Healthy people	Identified subtypes of apathy in behavioral, social, and emotional domains.
Depression	Hamilton Depression Scale	Mild AD	Emphasis on patient perception and memory; only appropriate for evaluating patients with mild dementia
	Cornell Scale for Depression in Dementia	AD	Accurately distinguish depressive symptoms in AD patients from their cognitive dysfunction
	Depressive Signs Scale	Severe dementia	Can not assess depressive symptoms in patients mild or moderate dementia.
	The Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale	Generally applicable	The scale is a short self-report scale designed to measure depressive symptomatology in the general population. More emphasis is placed on the individual’s emotional physical examination, less on the somatic symptoms of depression.
	Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale	People with depression	A clinical interview with ten items, each scored on a scale from 0 to 6, particularly sensitive to treatment effects.
	Geriatric depression scale	Elderly with depression	More sensitively examine somatic symptoms specific to older depressed patients, with 30 core items.
Anxiety	Hamilton Anxiety Scale	Generally applicable	Can not distinguish depression and anxiety well; The assessment of AD depression lacks specificity
	Worry Scale	Mild dementia/ non-dementia adults	The Worry Scale is a brief, unidimensional scale with good reliability and concurrent validity.
	Rating Anxiety in Dementia	Dementia	The items in the scale were rated according to the person’s symptoms and signs of anxiety over the previous 2 weeks, including worry, sleep disturbance, irritability, and a number of somatic symptoms
Depression, Anxiety	Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale	Adults	It contains two subscales of anxiety and depression, each with seven questions. The psychiatric assessment for each patient lasted about 20 min.
Aggressive	Rating Scale For Aggressive Behavior in the Elderly	Elderly	Not only to assess patients in nursing homes or hospitals, but also in the community
	Cohen-Mansfield Agitation Inventory	Generally applicable	The CMAI is a caregivers’ rating questionnaire consisting of 29 agitated behaviors, each rated on a 7-point scale of frequency. A disruptiveness scale was added to later versions.
Sleep disturbance	Women’s Health Initiative Insomnia Rating Scale	Women	A brief, five-item scale evaluating the frequency and intensity of certain sleep difficulties in respondents and requiring between 2 and 5 min

Abbreviations: AD Alzheimer’s disease, MCI mild cognitive impairment, MMSE Mini-mental State Examination, PD Parkinson’s disease