Incidence rates of characteristic diagnoses in neurological departments 1999

For improvement of knowledge about services German neurological departments have been asked to answer a questionnaire, dealing with incidence rates of 15 characteristic neurological disorders and other most frequent disorders (related to ICD-9), number of beds and whole number of patients treated in 1999. Of 284 departments 78% responded. These 222 departments disposed of about 11600 beds in which about 345 000 patients had been treated. Most fre quent disorders proved to be cerebrovascular diseases, epilepsies and multi ple sclerosis. Beside structural varieties there were differences in the sp ectrum of disorders with relation to the type of the department (university departments, neurology departments in general hospitals, neurology departm ents in psychiatry hospitals and neurology-psychiatry departments in genera l hospitals). The data of this neurology department-based incidence rates o f selected disorders were in good agreement with two official statistics of all listed disorders so that it can be considered valid. Besides that it h as to be taken into account that not all patients with neurological diagnos es are treated in neurological departments. This fact will be important for the future.