Are you apathetic ?

Emotional blunting ?
Lack of initiative ?
Lack of interest ?

Emotional blunting

Do you have the impression of being as affectionate as usual ?

Do you express your emotions ?

Emotional blunting

Loss of, or diminished, emotion

• Loss of spontaneous emotion, observed or self-reported (for example, subjective feeling of weak or absent emotions, or observation by others of a blunted affect)
• Loss of emotional responsiveness to positive or negative stimuli or events (for example, unchanging affect, or of little emotional reaction to exciting events, personal loss, serious illness, emotional-laden news)

Lack of initiative

Do you spontaneously begin a conversation ?

Do you make decisions and initiatives ?

Lack of initiative

Loss of, or diminished, goal-directed behaviour

• Loss of self-initiated behaviour (for example: starting conversation, doing basic tasks of day-to-day living, seeking social activities, communicating choices)
• Loss of environment-stimulated behaviour (for example: responding to conversation, participating in social activities)

Lack of interest

Do you have points of interest ?

Are you still interested by other people’s activities or projects ?

Are you interested in your friends and family members ?

Lack of interest

Loss of, or diminished, goal-directed cognitive activity

• Loss of spontaneous ideas and curiosity for routine and new events (i.e, challenging tasks, recent news, social opportunities, personal/family and social affairs).
• Loss of environment-stimulated ideas and curiosity for routine and new events (i.e, in the persons residence, neighbourhood or community).

Results

Follow-up

If you have a score higher than 3 during more than 4 weeks, please contact your doctor.

Informations

Apathy is a lack of motivation in behavior, cognition and affect.
Subjects with apathy do less,think less, feel less in relation with goal-directed events.
In other words apathy is a disorder of the initiation, direction and intensity of goal-directed behavior.
Apathy is common in many neuropsychiatric disorders need to be assessed.

The principle of the Apathy Inventory (IA) is to obtain information on the presence of apathy
At the time of the first assessment questions deal with behavior changes having appeared since the beginning of the disease. Behavior traits found throughout the life and not having changed are not taken into account, even if they were abnormal.

Copyright
Centre Mémoire de Ressources et de Recherche - C.H.U de NICE.
Email: massa.i@chu-nice.fr ou robert.ph@chu-nice.fr

Selected scientific references

• The Apathy Inventory: assessment of apathy and awareness in Alzheimer’s disease Parkinson’s disease and Mild cognitive impairment
  Robert PH, & al. (International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 17: 1099 – 1105, 2002)
• Brain perfusion correlates of the Apathy Inventory dimensions of Alzheimer’s disease
  Benoit M, & al. (International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry; 19: 864-869, 2004)
• Importance of lack of interest in patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment
  Robert, P.H., & al. (American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 16, 770-776, 2008)
• Neuropsychological performance in mild cognitive impairment with and without apathy
  Robert,P.H.,& al. (Dementia and Geriatric cognitive dis. 21 : 192-197, 2006)
• Proposed diagnostic criteria for apathy in Alzheimer’s Disease and other neuropsychiatric disease
  P.Robert, & al. (European Psychiatry, 24, 98 - 104 2009)