[Cross-cultural adaptation and reliability analyses of the Southampton Assessment of Mobility to assess mobility of Brazilian elderly with dementia].

The objective was to perform a cross-cultural adaptation of the Southampton Assessment of Mobility and test its intra- and inter-examiner reliability for Brazilian elderly living in the community and diagnosed with dementia, with severity classified according to the Clinical Dementia Rating. The instrument was applied to 107 elderly (76.26 years +/- 7.59; 27.1% males, 72.9% females) diagnosed with dementia by the geriatric clinic at the university hospital of the Federal University in Minas Gerais. From the initial group, a randomized sample of 39 elderly (76.85 years +/- 7.75; 23.1% males, 76.9% females) was selected for the reliability tests. The statistical tool was the kappa test. The respective reliability indices were: mild dementia - 0.89-0.86; moderate - 0.79-0.85; and severe - 0.53-0.49. After cross-cultural adaptation and reliability tests, the instrument proved adequate for the target population, with "near-perfect" reliability for mild and moderate dementia. For severe dementia, the reliability was moderate.