Premium
Neuropsychiatric symptoms in 921 elderly subjects with dementia: a comparison between vascular and neurodegenerative types
Author(s) -
Caputo M.,
Monastero R.,
Mariani E.,
Santucci A.,
Mangialasche F.,
Camarda R.,
Senin U.,
Mecocci P.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
acta psychiatrica scandinavica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.849
H-Index - 146
eISSN - 1600-0447
pISSN - 0001-690X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0447.2008.01175.x
Subject(s) - dementia with lewy bodies , vascular dementia , dementia , medicine , alzheimer's disease , logistic regression , disease , degenerative disease
Objective: i) to describe the neuropsychiatric profile of elderly subjects with dementia by comparing vascular (VaD) and degenerative dementias, i.e. dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD); ii) to assess whether the severity and type of dementia are associated with clinically relevant neuropsychiatric symptoms (CR‐NPS). Method: One hundred and thirty‐one out‐patients with VaD, 100 with DLB and 690 with AD were studied. NPS were evaluated by the neuropsychiatric inventory (NPI). Results: Vascular dementia had lower total and domain‐specific NPI scores and a lower frequency of CR‐NPS than AD and DLB, for which frequency of CR‐NPS increased significantly with disease severity, particularly in AD. Logistic regression analysis showed that a higher CDR score and a diagnosis of degenerative dementia were independently associated with CR‐NPS. Conclusion: Vascular dementia is associated less with CR‐NPS than AD and DLB. Frequency of CR‐NPS increases with disease severity in AD and, to a lesser extent, in DLB.