Association Between Dementia and Common Geriatric Syndromes

Abstract

Objective: Dementia is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by a decline in cognition involving one or more cognitive domains (learning and memory, language, executive function, complex attention, perceptual-motor, social cognition). We aimed to assess the relationship of dementia with falls, urinary incontinence, polypharmacy, malnutrition, frailty and sleep disorders. Materials and Methods: Two hundred and five individuals with the diagnosis of dementia and with no signs of dementia, who attended Istanbul University Faculty of Medicine geriatrics outpatient clinic, were retrospectively evaluated. Univariate and multivariate regression analyses were performed to investigate the association between dementia and other Geriatric syndromes. Results: The mean age was 77.9±6.47 years and 72.7% of the patients were female and 27.3% were male. The prevalence of dementia was 39.5% (n=81). In univariate analysis, dementia was found to be associated with malnutrition (p=0.024), sleep disorders (p=0.032), falls (p=0.001), frailty (p=0.037), male gender (p=0.001) and polypharmacy (p=0.001). In multivariate analysis, dementia was found to be independently associated with malnutrition (p=0.028, odds ratio=5.106, 95% confidence interval=1.189-21.932) and male gender (p=0.001, odds ratio=3.407, 95% confidence interval=1.786-6.500). Conclusion: In our study, it was found that malnutrition and male gender were independently associated with dementia. Patients with neurodegenerative diseases are at risk of malnutrition, while reduced food intake is associated with disease symptoms. Geriatric syndromes increase mortality and morbidity in dementia patients. Therefore, clinicians should be aware of Geriatric syndromes in dementia patients.