The growing burden of dementia and its associated health carecosts reinforce the importance of developing strategies for preventing dementia. Moreover, given limited resources, risk stratification that helps determine those at greatest risk of dementia can enable targeting of interventions at identified high-risk groups. Physical frailty and cognitive decline are 2 common conditions in older people that are associated with incident dementia. Results are inconsistent with not all studies finding an independent relationship between physical frailty and incident dementia after adjustment for baseline cognition. 1,2 In addition, small deficits in cognitive function may not always be captured by study instruments. Subjective memory complaints (SMCs) refer to self-perceived memory deficits in everyday life. It has been suggested that SMCs may be an early indicator of cognitive impairment and a preclinical stage of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) that is undetectable by objective instruments. 3e5 The main aim of the present study was to examine the relative contributions and joint association of frailty status and SMC or cognitive impairment with 5-year risk of dementia among community-dwelling persons aged 65 years or older who participated in the 2013 Taiwan National Health Interview Survey 6,7 and provided consent for data linkage to the National Health Insurance claims database in Taiwan.
Date:
2021-07-01
Relation:
Journal of the American Medical Directors Association. 2021 Jul 01;22(7):1558-1559.
