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An epidemiological study of age‐related dementia in the community
Author(s) -
Hasegawa Kazuo,
Homma Akira,
Imai Yukimichi
Publication year - 1986
Publication title -
international journal of geriatric psychiatry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.28
H-Index - 129
eISSN - 1099-1166
pISSN - 0885-6230
DOI - 10.1002/gps.930010108
Subject(s) - epidemiology , dementia , vascular dementia , medicine , psychiatry , senile dementia , gerontology , public health , psychology , demography , disease , pathology , sociology
Abstract A geronto‐psychiatric epidemiological study was carried out in Kanagawa prefecture. The total sample comprised 1800 subjects randomly selected among 224 492 people aged 65 years and over. Two hundred and thirty subjects with suspected ill health, selected from the primary survey by lay raters, were individually interviewed to perform psychiatric and physical evaluations by psychiatrists and psychologists with a semi‐structured interview form. Strict criteria similar to that of DSM‐III were used to diagnose dementia. The study revealed that the prevalence of the aged with dementia in the community was 4.8%. Prevalence increased with age and showed a great predominance of vascular dementia. The prevalence of non‐vascular senile dementia in Japan is lower than that reported in studies from outside Japan. Some possible explanatory factors for this finding are discussed.