BMJ 1995;311:125-126 (8 July)

Letters

Education and prevalence of Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia

Premorbid ability influences measures used to identify dementia

EDITOR,--Alewijn Ott and colleagues identified 474 cases of dementia in a suburb of Rotterdam and report that the prevalence of Alzheimer's disease is inversely related to educational status.1 In an accompanying editorial Martin Orrell and Barbara Sahakian conclude that there may be some truth in the age old saying "use it or lose it" regarding mental skills.2 In Ott and colleagues' study dementia was primarily diagnosed on the basis of poor performance in tests of cognitive efficiency. The first screen consisted of a geriatric mental status examination and the mini mental states examination. Subjects who were positive on screening were then assessed with the Cambridge examination for mental disorders of the elderly diagnostic interview; those scoring below the recommended cut off on the cognitive subscale were selected for brain scanning and neurological evaluation. In essence, a major determinant of the identification of . . . [Full text of this article]


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Relevant Article

Prevalence of Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia: association with education. The Rotterdam study
Alewijn Ott, Monique M B Breteler, Frans van Harskamp, Jules J Claus, Tischa J M van der Cammen, Diederick E Grobbee, and Albert Hofman
BMJ 1995 310: 970-973. [Abstract] [Full Text]

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