Predictive Factors of Severe Stage of Dementia among the Malaysian Elderly

Sima Ataollahi Eshkoor, Tengku Aizan Hamid*, Suzana Shahar and Chan Yoke Mun

Background: The increase in life expectancy has particular relevance to conditions such as cognitive decline and dementia. Dementia is a chronic neurodegenerative disease that is on the rise globally. As the mechanism of dementia has not yet been understood completely; therefore, it is difficult to find a proper and exact cure. Many people with dementia gradually progress towards the severe stage and the identification of risk factors will help to better prediction, and prevention of the severe stage. 

The context and purpose of the study: This study aimed to test the effects of hypercholesterolemia, hypertension (HT), diabetes mellitus (DM), and heart disease, as well as socio-demographic factors, and nutritional elements on the severe stage of dementia in the elderly. This study recruited 2322 subjects who were non-institutionalized Malaysian elderly. The hierarchy binary logistic regression analysis was used to predict the effects of suspected variables on the risk of severe stage of dementia in subjects.

Results: Approximately, 2.7% of samples experienced the severe stage of dementia. The results of the last step of analysis showed that age (odds ratio [OR]=2.44), and female gender (OR=3.12) increased significantly the risk of severe stage of dementia in subjects (p<0.05). Hypercholesterolemia (OR=0.25), phosphorous intake (OR=0.26), and the capability of counting (OR=0.37) reduced significantly the risk of severe stage of dementia. 

Conclusions: It was concluded that age, and female gender were the factors, which increased the risk of severe stage of dementia in samples. On the other hand, hypercholesterolemia, phosphorous intake, and counting capability decreased the risk of severe stage of dementia in subjects. In addition, the rest of variables did not show any significant effects on the risk of severe stage of dementia in respondents.

Keywords: Dementia; Elderly; Element; Hypercholesterolemia; Vitamin

Published on: Dec 30, 2016 Pages: 6-12

Full Text PDF Full Text HTML DOI: 10.17352/aggr.000003
CrossMark Publons Harvard Library HOLLIS Search IT Semantic Scholar Get Citation Base Search Scilit OAI-PMH ResearchGate Academic Microsoft GrowKudos Universite de Paris UW Libraries SJSU King Library SJSU King Library NUS Library McGill DET KGL BIBLiOTEK JCU Discovery Universidad De Lima WorldCat VU on WorldCat