[Characteristics of dementia patients with aggressive behaviors]

Aggressive behaviors are found in dementia patients and pose major problems for their caregivers and may be amenable to treatment. The present study aims to determine the frequency of aggressive behaviors in dementia patients and to test whether there is a relationship with the psychiatric symptoms. Ninety-one dementia patients from a geriatric psychiatry unit were surveyed for the aggressive behaviors and psychiatric symptoms by semi-structured interview with the patients and their caregivers. Major findings included that 53.8% of these patients had aggressive behaviors; these patients were older and had later onset of dementia; the presence of hallucination, misidentification and wandering were significant predictors of physical aggression; the association of aggressive behaviors with the cognitive test and delusion was not significant. These observations suggest that dementia patients have a high prevalence rate of aggressive behaviors that warrants the prevention and intervention. Hallucination, misidentification and wandering are risk factors for physical aggression and potentially trestable. Further research is needed to identify the cause and the management of aggressive behaviors in dementia patients.