[Prevalence and risk factors of age-related memory disorder in a health district]

Normal aging is characterised by alterations affecting the cognitive functions. In 1958 Kral coined the term 'benign senescent forgetfulness' to designate a memory disorder that is different from those that occur during normal aging. In 1986, a group of researchers at the National Institute of Mental Health and other centres proposed a novel neuropsychological entity called age-related memory disorder. The determination of the prevalence, progression and risk factors of this condition currently represents an important challenge for the scientific community.

To establish the rate of prevalence and to identify some of the risk factors involved in age-related memory disorders.

The universe consisted of all the patients over 50 years of age from a health district (234 individuals); the diagnostic criteria were applied to the whole sample. In addition to the patients, a control group was also chosen in order to be able to establish a correlation with selected risk factors.

The prevalence rate was found to be 39.7%, of which 38.7% were males and 40.4% were females. It was also observed that the impairment was greater as the patient's age and the length of the disease history increased. As far as risk factors are concerned, it was observed that smoking and psychosocial characteristics constitute predisposing factors, while this was not the case for arterial hypertension, a history of dementia and the satisfaction of basic needs.