Prevalence of dementia and major subtypes in Europe: A collaborative studyof population-based cohorts

The last comparison of prevalence figures of dementia across European studi es was 10 years ago. Using studies conducted in the 1990s, the authors comp are the age- and sex-specific prevalence of dementia, AD, and vascular deme ntia (VaD) across European population-based studies of persons 65 years and older. Data from these studies were also pooled to obtain stable estimates of age- and sex-specific prevalence. A total of 2346 cases of mild to seve re dementia were identified in 11 cohorts. Age-standardized prevalence was 6.4% for dementia tall causes), 4.4% for AD, and 1.6% for VaD. The prevalen ce of dementia increased continuously with age and was 0.8% in the group ag e 65 to 69 years and 28.5% at age 90 years and older. The corresponding fig ures for AD (53.7% of cases) were 0.6% and 22.2%, and for VaD (15.8% of cas es), 0.3% and 5.2%. Variation of AD prevalence across studies was greatest for men. In the VaD subtype, a large variation across studies was observed, as well as a difference in prevalence between men and women that was age d ependent. Dementia is more prevalent in women, and AD is the main contribut or to the steep increase of prevalence with age.