Age and Ageing Advance Access originally published online on January 13, 2006
Age and Ageing 2006 35(2):154-160; doi:10.1093/ageing/afj030
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Risk factors for incident dementia in England and Wales: The Medical Research Council Cognitive Function and Ageing Study. A population-based nested case–control study
MRC Cognitive Function and Ageing Study,
1 University of Cambridge, Department of Public Health and Primary Care, Cambridge, UK
2 MRC Biostatistics Unit, Institute of Public Health, Cambridge, UK
Address correspondence to: F. E. Matthews. Email: fiona.matthews{at}mrc-bsu.cam.ac.uk
Objective: to investigate a number of prospectively collected factors (sociodemographic, medical and behavioural) and their association with incident dementia in a population-based cohort.
Design: nested case–control analysis (at 2 and 6 years) of a population-based cohort study.
Setting: individuals aged 65 years and above from five centres in England and Wales: two rural (Cambridgeshire and Gwynedd) and three urban (Nottingham, Newcastle and Oxford).
Participants: a total of 4,075 individuals from a detailed assessment group, with risk measured at baseline.
Main outcome measure: incident dementia at 2 and 6 years.
Methods: logistic regression was used to calculate crude odds ratios (ORs) for various risk factors and ORs adjusted for age, sex, education and social class.
Results: age (90+ versus 65–69 years OR = 25.6, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 11.6–56.9) and sex (women versus men OR = 1.6, 95% CI = 1.1–2.4) were directly associated with dementia, with a trend by years of education (Ptrend = 0.02) but not social class. Poor self-perceived health (versus good) increased the risk for incident dementia (OR = 3.9, 95% CI = 2.2–6.9). Alcohol and smoking (never, past and current) were neither strongly protective nor predictive. Stroke was strongly related to incident dementia (OR = 2.1, 95% CI = 1.1–4.2), as was Parkinson’s disease (OR = 3.5, 95% CI = 1.3–9.3), and exposure to general anaesthesia (GA) was inversely associated with dementia development (OR = 0.6, 95% CI = 0.4–0.9, with a trend with increasing GA exposure; P = 0.003).
Conclusion: in this large multicentre and long-term population-based study, some well-known risk factors for dementia, of vascular and Alzheimer’s type, are confirmed but not others. The association between self-perceived health—a robust predictor of later health outcomes—and incident dementia, independently of other potential risks, warrants further study.
Keywords: incident dementia, dementia, risk factors, population-based study, CFAS, elderly
Received April 5, 2005; accepted in revised form November 21, 2005.
CiteULike 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us What's this?
This article has been cited by other articles:
|
|
 |
|
  V. C. Crooks, J. Lubben, D. B. Petitti, D. Little, and V. Chiu Social Network, Cognitive Function, and Dementia Incidence Among Elderly Women Am J Public Health, July 1, 2008; 98(7): 1221 - 1227. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 C. Brayne, C. McCracken, and F. E Matthews Cohort Profile: The Medical Research Council Cognitive Function and Ageing Study (CFAS) Int. J. Epidemiol., October 1, 2006; 35(5): 1140 - 1145. [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|