An epidemiological study of dementia among the habitants of eastern Uttar Pradesh, India

Dementia is one of the most serious health problems of the elderly and their caregivers. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to estimate the prevalence of dementia in the community, its sociodemographic and behavioral associates to determine the risk factors among resident of two districts of eastern Uttar Pradesh, India. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This study was based on 2890 subjects aged 50 years and above, residing in rural areas of Mirzapur and urban areas of the Varanasi district of eastern Uttar Pradesh, India. Efforts were made to identify the subjects of age 50 years and above using cluster sampling. The Hindi Mental State Examination was used as the instrument tool to determine the score and a cut-off score of ≤23 was considered as the presence of dementia among the identified subjects. RESULTS: The overall prevalence of dementia was found to be 5.1%. This percentage was increasing with age and decreasing with educational level. Among females, the prevalence of dementia was observed (7.2%) to be double than that in males (3.8%). Widows/widowers/unmarried had a double prevalence (9.3%) as compared with married (4.3%) people. The age, gender, marital status, education, occupation, number of family members in the household and liquor addiction were found to be significantly associated with dementia. The relative risk for the above-mentioned variables was found to be more than 1.