한국의 한 농촌 지역에 거주하는 노인에서의 치매의 유병률

Prevalence of Dementia in the Elderly Residents of a Rural Community in Korea

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The authors investigated the prevalence and risk factors of dementia among 1,674 elderly residents in Yonchon county of Kyonggido, a rural area of Korea who were above 65 years of age, in 1993. The primary screening was done with MMSE-K(Korean version of Mini-mental State Examination), and the final diagnoses of dementia for 436 subjects were made by NINCDS-ADRDA criteria. The prevalence of total dementia was 9.5%, and it increased with advancing age. Particularly, it rapidly increased in the elderly above 75 years of age. The prevalence of dementia in female as a whole was higher than in male, but this was not shown in each age group. The prevalences of Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia were 4.5% and 2.5%, respectively. Assessing the degree of dementia with DSM-Ⅲ-R criteria, the prevalence of moderate and severe dementia was 3.3%. Our result showed the similar finding to the prevalence of dementia in western countries, but was different from those of the previous studies in other Asian countries, China and Japan.