[Prevention and treatment of dementia: what should we do today?]

Three studies were conducted on elderly patients with dementia. A case of control study on life styles before falling ill revealed that "intake of sweets" was significantly associated with clinically diagnosed dementia of the Alzheimer's type. Evaluation of treatments of outpatients suggests that proper care and some kinds of neuroleptics are useful for alleviation of abnormal behavior such as agitation, wandering, hallucination, insomnia and depression, but not for improvement of cognitive function and memory. A study on caregivers of elderly demented patients was undertaken to determine the relationship between the components of burden and symptoms of patients. Insomnia and abnormal behavior of patients correlated with physical and mental components of the burden of caregivers. Memory disturbance, psychological symptoms and deterioration in ADL correlated with physical burden. These studies indicate that symptoms accompanying dementia such as insomnia, wandering, hallucination and agitation should be the treated intensively for the purpose of improvement of the quality of the lives of patients and caregivers.