BACKGROUND

Dementia is defined as the evidence of a significant cognitive decline compared to the previous level of performance in one or more cognitive domains.

OBJECTIVE

To analyze the comorbidity in ambulatory patients older than 65 years with dementia.

MATERIAL AND METHOD

A cross-sectional study was done in patients older than 65 years, taking the information from November 2016 to June 2017. Socio-demographic variables and comorbidity among elderly people with and without dementia were compared.

RESULTS

324 patients were analyzed, 206 (63.6%) women, mean age 81.2 ± 6 years, average schooling of 5.2 ± 4.0 years, 45 (46.87%) were married. The 96 (42.4%) subjects with dementia had a higher proportion of women: 52 (54.16%) vs 91 (40.26%), p < 0.05. Cerebral vascular event was the only one of the comorbidities that showed a statistically significant difference with 22 (22.9%) vs 24 (10.6%), p < 0.01. The factors associated with dementia were female sex (OR 1.79; 95% CI: 1.05-3.05; p < 0.05) and cerebral vascular event (OR 3.4; 95% CI: 1.52-7.59; p < 0.01).

CONCLUSION

Dementia is usually more common in older women. It is associated mainly with cerebral vascular events, without establishing a specific comorbidity relationship with the rest of the diseases analyzed.

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