Awareness of putative risk factors for Alzheimer's disease among elderly Koreans

Although there are rapidly growing concerns about the high rates of cognitive dysfunction in Korea, the knowledge of risk factors for Alzheimer's disease (AD) among the general public in Korea remains to be elucidated.

A total of 2767 randomly selected subjects from the Ansan Geriatric Study were questioned on their knowledge of putative risk factors for AD. Their answers were compared with their sociodemographic data and other variables.

The most common stated risk factor was being older (59.6%), followed by head trauma (33.6%) and cerebrovascular disease (30.4%). However, a substandard education, which is a known risk factor, was considered significant by only 9.5% of the subjects. Predictors for a worse knowledge of the risk factors for AD were being older, a lower level of education, lower economic status and the attitude that dementia is not curable.

This study revealed that misunderstanding about AD is more prevalent in older subjects and those with a lower level of education, and so public health education on the basic concepts of AD should be targeted at this population.