Prevalence of Dementia and Its Subtypes in an Elderly Urban Korean Population: Results from the Korean Longitudinal Study on Health and Aging (KLoSHA)

Abstract

Background/Aims: We estimated the prevalence of dementia and its major subtypes in an elderly urban Korean population. Methods: A study population of 1,118 Korean elders was randomly sampled from the residents aged 65 years or older living in Seongnam, Korea. Standardized face-to-face interviews, and neurological and physical examinations were conducted on 714 respondents. Dementia was diagnosed according to the DSM-IV diagnostic criteria, and its subtypes were determined according to the criteria of the NINCDS-ADRDA, the NINDS-AIREN, and the consensus guideline proposed by McKeith et al. [Neurology 1996;47:1113–1124]. Results: The estimated age- and gender-standardized prevalences were 6.3% for dementia (95% CI = 4.5–8.1), 4.8% for Alzheimer’s disease (AD; 95% CI = 3.3–6.4), 1.0% for vascular dementia (VD; 95% CI = 0.3–1.8), and 0.4% for dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB; 95% CI = 0.0–0.9). The prevalence of AD consistently increased with age, whereas that of VD peaked at age 75–79 years and decreased thereafter. Of the dementia patients, 72.0% were in the very mild or mild stages of the disease. Conclusions: The prevalence of dementia in a typical urban area of Korea was estimated to be 6.3%, and AD was the most prevalent subtype. DLB was less prevalent than VD among these community-dwelling Korean elders.

Prevalence of Dementia in Elderly Clients of a Private Health Care Plan: A Study of the FIBRA-RJ, Brazil

“…As regards the major dementia subtypes, the results confirmed what is being found by other studies: that AD is the most frequent subtype in older adults, followed by VD [35,36,37]. AD was diagnosed in 63.7% of the cases, a result similar to those obtained by other studies that have shown AD to affect more than 50% of cases of individuals aged 65 or more years [6,28], and more than 60% among still older age groups [38,39].…”

Interethnic Differences in Dementia Epidemiology: Global and Asia-Pacific Perspectives

“…Among countries in the Asia-Pacific region, the variation in dementia prevalence rates was consistent with the broad picture, as illustrated by recent publications of large studies [8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20] (table 1). Notwithstanding some differences in age among populations compared, there is a clear suggestion that dementia prevalence is higher in Japan and Korea, which are relatively higher income countries.…”

Korean Version of Frontal Assessment Battery: Psychometric Properties and Normative Data

“…We tested the criterion validity of the FAB-K using AD as the gold standard, since AD is the most common cause of dementia [38,39] . Approximately 60% of AD patients manifest variable executive/frontal dysfunctions [4,17] , and thus AD may be the most common cause of dysexecutive syndrome in clinical settings.…”