Gender and Age Differences and the Trend in the Incidence and Prevalence of Dementia and Alzheimer's Disease in Taiwan: A 7-Year National Population-Based Study.

Chih-Ching Liu,Susan C Hu,Yu Sun,Chung-Yi Li

doi:10.1155/2019/5378540

Chih-Ching Liu, Susan C Hu + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.1155/2019/5378540

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Abstract

Background Very few nationwide studies have focused on the variations in the incidence and prevalence of dementia and Alzheimer's disease (AD) in Asian countries. This study aims to describe the gender and age differences in the incidence and prevalence of dementia and AD in Taiwan. Methods The data on dementia and AD were acquired from the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database from 2004 to 2010. The sex and age-specific rates were standardized, and the differences of gender and age on dementia or AD were assessed using Poisson regression analysis. Results Over seven years, the prevalence of dementia and AD significantly increased from 4.7 to 7.6 per hundred people (β = 0.0784, p < 0.0001) and 2.3 to 3.5 per hundred people (β = 0.0696, p < 0.0001), respectively. However, the incidence of both dementia and AD decreased but not significantly from 10.9 to 10.7 and 4.9 to 4.6 per thousand person-years, respectively. Noticeably, both incidence and prevalence increased with age and were higher in women than in men. Conclusions The standardized incidence rates of dementia and AD are much lower than the data reported in some studies from Europe, the US, and Japan. Further studies are warranted to explore which factors are associated with the differences in the incidence of dementia and AD in Taiwan.

Highlights

Dementia has been considered as a public health priority as it commonly leads to increase in terms of disability, mortality, and cost [1, 2]. e most common type of dementia is Alzheimer’s disease (AD) which accounts for nearly 50%– 70% of dementia in the world [3]
More than 99% of Taiwan’s residents have been enrolled in the NHI program after 1996. e National Health Insurance Administration has contracted with 92.5% of the hospitals and clinics in Taiwan [35] and performs expert reviews quarterly on a random sample in each hospital and clinic to ensure the accuracy of the claims data [35]. erefore, information obtained from National Health Insurance Research Database (NHIRD) is considered to be complete and accurate
Our study showed females were more likely than males to have a diagnosis of dementia (AIRR 1.15, 95% CI 1.14–1.16) or AD (AIRR 1.38, 95% CI 1.36–1.40), which was close to figures (2 fold) noted in some previous studies [43, 44]

Summary

Background

Very few nationwide studies have focused on the variations in the incidence and prevalence of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) in Asian countries. is study aims to describe the gender and age differences in the incidence and prevalence of dementia and AD in Taiwan. Is study aims to describe the gender and age differences in the incidence and prevalence of dementia and AD in Taiwan. The prevalence of dementia and AD significantly increased from 4.7 to 7.6 per hundred people (β 0.0784, p < 0.0001) and 2.3 to 3.5 per hundred people (β 0.0696, p < 0.0001), respectively. The incidence of both dementia and AD decreased but not significantly from 10.9 to 10.7 and 4.9 to 4.6 per thousand person-years, respectively. Both incidence and prevalence increased with age and were higher in women than in men.

Introduction

Materials and Methods

Participants

Findings

Conclusions