Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- PART I Biological perspectives
- PART II Cognitive perspectives
- PART III Clinical perspectives
- 14 Biological and psychosocial risk factors for dementia and memory loss
- 15 Cross-cultural issues in the neuropsychological assessment of neurodegenerative disease
- 16 Psychometric issues in the clinical assessment of memory in aging and neurodegenerative disease
- 17 The role of memory assessment in the preclinical detection of dementia
- 18 Clinical differentiation of memory disorders in neurodegenerative disease
- 19 The impact of depression on memory in neurodegenerative disease
- 20 Preserved cognitive skills in neurodegenerative disease
- 21 Drug treatment of cognitive impairment in neurodegenerative disease: rationale, current experience and expectations for the future
- 22 Surgical interventions in neurodegenerative disease: impact on memory and cognition
- 23 Memory dysfunction in neurodegenerative disease: ethical and legal issues
- 24 Memory in neurodegenerative disease: clinical perspectives
- Index
14 - Biological and psychosocial risk factors for dementia and memory loss
from PART III - Clinical perspectives
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 November 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- PART I Biological perspectives
- PART II Cognitive perspectives
- PART III Clinical perspectives
- 14 Biological and psychosocial risk factors for dementia and memory loss
- 15 Cross-cultural issues in the neuropsychological assessment of neurodegenerative disease
- 16 Psychometric issues in the clinical assessment of memory in aging and neurodegenerative disease
- 17 The role of memory assessment in the preclinical detection of dementia
- 18 Clinical differentiation of memory disorders in neurodegenerative disease
- 19 The impact of depression on memory in neurodegenerative disease
- 20 Preserved cognitive skills in neurodegenerative disease
- 21 Drug treatment of cognitive impairment in neurodegenerative disease: rationale, current experience and expectations for the future
- 22 Surgical interventions in neurodegenerative disease: impact on memory and cognition
- 23 Memory dysfunction in neurodegenerative disease: ethical and legal issues
- 24 Memory in neurodegenerative disease: clinical perspectives
- Index
Summary
INTRODUCTION
The process of identifying risk factors for dementia is a long one, that typically begins with an astute clinician who observes that a given factor or agent seems to be associated with a specific disorder. These initial observations often are followed by case-control studies, in which patients with the disease of interest are compared with healthy control subjects to determine whether or not the suspected risk factors are more frequent among those with the disease than those without. While clinical observations and case-control studies provide important clues about potential risk factors, limitations inherent in these methods (e.g. selection bias) restrict conclusions about risk factors that can be drawn from them. Large-scale, population- or community-based epidemiological investigations can control for some of the limitations associated with clinical research and can more definitively assess potential risk factors.
In recent years, there have been a number of community-based epidemiological studies of dementia and associated risk factors. In this chapter, we review studies of the incidence and prevalence of dementia associated with various disorders. Prevalence represents the total number of cases of a disease in a defined population at a given time; incidence represents the number of people in a defined population who develop a disease in a given time period. The prevalence of a disease in a population is the function of both the incidence rate and the duration of the disease.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Memory in Neurodegenerative DiseaseBiological, Cognitive, and Clinical Perspectives, pp. 243 - 254Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1998
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