Journal of Cognitive Neuropsychology

Early dementia screening in management of the aging veterans

17^th World Congress on Vascular Dementia and Neurodegenerative Diseases
April 12, 2021 Webinar

Winifred Dedo

Sumy State University, Ukraine

Posters & Accepted Abstracts: Jour Cogn Neuropsy

Abstract

Introduction: There is a significant increase in the range among veterans because of the aging of the veteran population and a high prevalence of dementia risk factors. The most common dementia in veteran are reported to be Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia, with other forms being less common. For early detection of dementia, a rapid screening tests would be extremely useful, as they could help doctors to decide whether or not to proceed with more in-depth clinical evaluation, i.e. neuroimaging. Material and methods: To examine the risk of dementia among veterans we conducted a randomized study of the 103 patients aged 60 to 80 years old of the Sumy Region Affair Hospital and Sumy City Primary Care Center. Patient of group 1 (63 persons) were the veterans (aged 69±4,1 years), patients of group 2 (40 persons) have not been participating in war conflicts (control group, aged 71±3,6 years old). To all the patient were conducted clinical interviewing and physical examination. For interviewing we` used particular tools (Min Mental State Examination (MMSE), Early Dementia Questionnaire (EDQ), and Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS). The authors had full access to and take full responsibility for the integrity of the data Result: It was found that prevalence of dementia in group 1 was 72.8% by EDQ and 45.5% by MMSE, in group 2 it was 32.8% by EDQ and 14.1% by MMSE respectively. The strongest predictor of possible early dementia among veterans was complaints of memory problems (56.2%) followed by complaints of concentration problems (44.3%), emotional problems (24.75%) and sleep disturbances (23.4%). Socio-demographic factors, medical problems and smoking status were not associated possible dementia (p>0.05), despite that over 65% of the elderly in both of the groups had chronic illnesses. Conclusion: Early screening for dementia using questionnaires should be recommended at the primary care level in order to make timely decisions about further examination and timely treatment of patients. However, further research is required.