1. Cohort Effects in the Prevalence and Survival of People with Dementia in a Rural Area in Northern Sweden
- Author
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Eva von Strauss, Inga Klarin, Anders Sköldunger, Britt-Marie Sjölund, Gunilla Nordberg, Anders Wimo, and Chengxuan Qiu
- Subjects
Gerontology ,Male ,Rural Population ,medicine.medical_specialty ,Aging ,Prevalence ,Sex Factors ,Risk Factors ,Epidemiology ,Cohort Effect ,medicine ,Dementia ,Humans ,Survival rate ,Aged ,Geriatrics ,Aged, 80 and over ,Sweden ,business.industry ,General Neuroscience ,General Medicine ,medicine.disease ,Survival Rate ,Psychiatry and Mental health ,Clinical Psychology ,Cohort effect ,Cohort ,Female ,Geriatrics and Gerontology ,Rural area ,business ,Demography - Abstract
Background: Recent studies suggest that trends in cardiovascular risk may result in a decrease in age-specific prevalence of dementia. Studies in rural areas are rare. Objectives: To study cohort effects in dementia prevalence and survival of people with dementia in a Swedish rural area. Methods: Participants were from the 1995-1998 Nordanstig Project (NP) (n = 303) and the 2001-2003 Swedish National study on Aging and Care in Nordanstig (SNAC-N) (n = 384). Overall 6-year dementia prevalence and mortality in NP and SNAC-N were compared for people 78 years and older. Logistic regression analyses were used to calculate odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for dementia occurrence using the NP study population as the reference group. Cox regression models were used to analyze time to death. Results: The crude prevalence of dementia was 21.8% in NP and 17.4% in SNAC-N. When the NP cohort was used as the reference group, the age- and gender-adjusted OR of dementia was 0.71 (95% CI 0.48–1.04) in SNAC-N; the OR was 0.47 (0.24–0.90) for men and 0.88 (0.54–1.44) for women. In the extended model, the OR of dementia was significantly lower in SNAC-N than in the NP cohort as a whole (0.63; 0.39–0.99) and in men (0.34; 0.15–0.79), but not in women (0.81; 0.46–1.44). The Cox regression models indicated that the hazard ratio of dying was lower in the SNAC-N than NP population. Conclusions: Trends toward a lower prevalence of dementia in high-income countries seem to be evident in this Swedish rural area, at least in men.
- Published
- 2015