The Study of Prevalence and Associated Factors of Dementia in the Elderly

Abstract

Objective: Nowadays, Thailand and Worldwide are going to be aged society. Elderly health issue is more important. Dementia is one of the major problems in elderly. Dementia patients can develop many symptoms such as memory loss, decision difficultly, language deficit, personality and mood change. In severe case, they need a caregiver. This disturbs daily activities and decreases quality of life. Because of taking part in primary care, there are many elderlies with dementia. There is less data about proactive study in primary care. Aims of this study are assessing the prevalence and related factors of dementia in elderly.
Methods: A descriptive study of 295 elderlies was studied in Bangkruai subdistrict, Bangkruai district, Nonthaburi. According to the definition in Thailand, elderly is people who is older than 60 years old. Tools for this study were MMSE-Thai 2002 for screening dementia and calculating prevalence and general information questionnaire for related factor.
Results: The results showed the prevalence of dementia in elderly in Bangkruai subdistrict, Bangkruai district, Nonthaburi was 18 percent. The related factors that have statistically significant were male sex, high age, low education, diabetes mellitus, no mobile phone, no computer skill, no internet skill, rarely social participation and rarely religion participation. However, factors that had no statistically significant were weight, height, BMI, marital status, occupation, hypertension, dyslipidemia, daily medicine, alcohol consumption, smoking, coffee, exercise, daily television use and family category.
Conclusion:  The prevalence of dementia in the elderly was 18 percent and the related factors that have statistically significant were male sex, high age, low education, diabetes mellitus, no mobile phone, no computer skill, no internet skill, rarely social participation and rarely religion participation. The study showed size of problem and made the good plans for elderly health such as technology assessment and motivation for social participation.