Prevalence of dementia in a southern European population in two different time periods: the ZARADEMP Project

Abstract

Stability of the global prevalence of dementia in the elderly population has been documented. However, the decreased prevalence found in elderly men stimulated environmental hypotheses.

Simultaneous temporal trends in dementia incidence and prevalence, 2005–2013: a population-based retrospective cohort study in Saskatchewan, Canada

“…For instance, in comparison to field studies, administrative health data studies such as the present study tend to underestimate the true number of individuals with dementia because dementia tends to be underrecognized in the healthcare system (Lambert et al, 2014). Moreover, evidence in some high income nations of declining incidence trends (Rocca et al, 2011;Schrijvers et al, 2012;Qiu et al, 2013) and stable or downward prevalence trends (Lobo et al, 2007;Langa et al, 2008;Hall et al, 2009;Matthews et al, 2013;Qiu et al, 2013;Doblhammer et al, 2015), may reflect a positive association between national wealth, public health, and healthcare and therefore hinder generalization of findings to low and middle income countries where population aging and cardiovascular risk factors tend to be on the rise (ADI, 2015;Wu et al, 2015).…”

“…Recent studies support an association between temporal trends of dementia decline and improved treatment of vascular risks (Lobo et al, 2007;Qiu et al, 2013) such as the use of antithrombotic and lipid-lowering drugs (Schrijvers et al, 2012), antihypertensive medications (Langa et al, 2008;Hall et al, 2009) and statins (Langa et al, 2008;Hall et al, 2009;Schrijvers et al, 2012). The most recent available population-level data for the study period indicate declining annual rates of mortality in Saskatchewan due to major cardiovascular diseases (Statistics Canada, 2014b), heart diseases, and cerebrovascular diseases (2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009) (Statistics Canada, 2013b).…”

“…non-smoking, physical activity, healthy diet, and limited alcohol intake) (Elwood et al, 2013). Increased uptake of healthy behaviors over time has been linked to declining dementia trends (Lobo et al, 2007;Hall et al, 2009;Qiu et al, 2013) as have reduced cardiovascular risks such as prevention of heart disease , and decreased hypertension (Qiu et al, 2013), cholesterol (Qiu et al, 2013), and stroke (Rocca et al, 2011). However, a trend of increasing dementia prevalence in Japan has also been attributed to rising rates of obesity, hypercholesterolemia, and other metabolic disorders (Sekita et al, 2010).…”

“…An additional three original studies reported a downward temporal trend, namely separate field studies in a national US sample (Langa et al, 2008), Zaragoza, Spain (Lobo et al, 2007), and regions of England and Wales .…”

“…Key studies provide evidence of declining incidence in Rochester, United States (US) (Rocca et al, 2011) and Rotterdam, the Netherlands (Schrijvers et al, 2012). Further studies indicate stable (Hall et al, 2009) or declining dementia prevalence in a national US sample (Langa et al, 2008), stable prevalence in a German sample (Doblhammer et al, 2015), and declining prevalence in Zaragoza, Spain (Lobo et al, 2007) and regions of England and Wales . In contrast, other research reveals increasing dementia prevalence in northern Sweden (Mathillas et al, 2011), a national sample of France (Bertrand et al, 2013), Hisayama, Japan (Sekita et al, 2010), and the province of Alberta, Canada (Jacklin et al, 2013).…”