Causes of Death Associated with Alzheimer Disease: Variation by Level of Cognitive Impairment Before Death

Abstract

When AD cases were followed from first diagnosis to death, the causes of death varied by level of cognitive impairment. Illnesses potentially amenable to treatment caused death at all levels of disease, but more so early in the course of AD. Cognitive impairment may make patients less able to recognize and report symptoms of medical problems, thereby complicating efforts to intervene.

A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Examining Pneumonia-Associated Mortality in Dementia

“…Other types of dementia included vascular dementia, mixed dementia, and unspecified, ‘other' dementia. In 5 of the population-based studies, the participants' mean age at baseline was reported for both the dementia and the comparison group, and in all cases, those with dementia were significantly older [4,11,17,18,20]. In the 2 hospital-based studies where age was reported, those with dementia were significantly older at the time of hospital death [12,13].…”

“…In the remaining studies, participants with AD represented >50% (n = 5 studies) [11,13,17,18,20] or <50% (n = 2 studies) [6,12] of the dementia cases, or the breakdown of dementia types was not reported [15,19]. Other types of dementia included vascular dementia, mixed dementia, and unspecified, ‘other' dementia.…”

“…In these studies, incident cases of dementia were identified based on standardized criteria. Participants with and those without dementia were followed up over time, and the cause(s) of death was/were established during the course of the study's follow-up period or after all the study participants had died [3,4,11,16,17,18,19,20]. The average lengths of follow-up varied between studies from 4 to 10 years.…”

“…Following the review of titles and abstracts, 23 potentially relevant studies remained for detailed examination, 12 of which met all inclusion criteria. One additional study was retrieved through hand searching, leaving 13 studies in total for review [3,4,6,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20]. …”

Effect of a Dementia Diagnosis on Survival of Older Patients After a Diagnosis of Breast, Colon, or Prostate Cancer: Implications for Cancer Care

“…6 Pneumonia is the most common cause of death in severe dementia, while heart disease and stroke are common causes of death in mild to moderate dementia. 7 Knowing how comorbid dementia affects deaths from cancer and from noncancer causes may help guide cancer care decisions. Such knowledge may also help answer important clinical questions.…”