Conceptual Basis
The items of the BAS-D were derived from the depression subscale of Gurland’s Comprehensive Assessment and Referral Evaluation (CARE) system (see Chapter 10). This was originally developed as part of a system to distinguish depression from dementia, which are clinically hard to separate because the two categories of symptoms often coexist in the same patient (1). Hence Gurland proposed an 18-item depression scale and a 17-item dementia scale that were concurrently tested in the United States and in England (1, Tables 1 and 2). These items subsequently went through various refinements to produce the version reviewed here (2–5). The BAS-D was intended for use in residential settings (6).