Skip Navigation



Age and Ageing Advance Access published online on January 13, 2006

Age and Ageing, doi:10.1093/ageing/afj030
This Article
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow supplementary data
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
35/2/154    most recent
afj030v1
Right arrow E-letters: Submit a response
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me when E-letters are posted
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Disclaimer
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Matthews, F. E.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Matthews, F. E.
Social Bookmarking
 Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Geriatrics Society. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org
Received April 5, 2005
Accepted November 21, 2005

Article

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, Agustin G. Yip 1, Carol Brayne 1, and Fiona E. Matthews 2 *

1 University of Cambridge, Department of Public Health and Primary Care, Cambridge, UK
2 MRC Biostatistics Unit, Institute of Public Health, Cambridge, UK

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Fiona E. Matthews, E-mail: fiona.matthews{at}mrc-bsu.cam.ac.uk


   Abstract

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.
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
AJPHHome page
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]


Home page
Int J EpidemiolHome page
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]



Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.