Research Article
Screening Dementia in the Outpatient Department:
Patients at Risk for Dementia
Shu-Yu Tai,
1,2
Shu-Wan Huang,
3
Chia-Ling Hsu,
3
Chiu-Hsien Yang,
1,2
Mei-Chuan Chou,
3,4
and Yuan-Han Yang
3,4,5,6
1
Department of Family Medicine, Kaohsiung Municipal Ta-Tung Hospital, Kaohsiung City 80145, Taiwan
2
Department of Family Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital, Kaohsiung Medical University,
Kaohsiung City 80708, Taiwan
3
Department of Neurology, Kaohsiung Municipal Ta-Tung Hospital, Taiwan
4
Department of Neurology, Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital, Kaohsiung 80708, Taiwan
5
Mentality Protection Center, Fo Guang Shan Compassion Foundation, Kaohsiung City 80050, Taiwan
6
Department of and Master’s Program in Neurology, Faculty of Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical University,
Kaohsiung City 80708, Taiwan
Correspondence should be addressed to Yuan-Han Yang; endless@kmu.edu.tw
Received 4 July 2014; Revised 8 August 2014; Accepted 26 August 2014; Published 8 December 2014
Academic Editor: Huali Wang
Copyright © 2014 Shu-Yu Tai et al. his is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License,
which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
he targeted screening for individuals at the risks of having dementia would be crucial to the further public health issues for
dementia. his study aimed to conduct a screening study in an outpatient department of a regional hospital to screen people who
were at risk of developing comorbid dementia. Patients who visited Kaohsiung Municipal Ta-Tung Hospital (KMTTH) clinics
during the period from June 1, 2013, to May 31, 2014, were invited to participate in this screening voluntarily. he trained interviewer
collected all participants’ demographic characteristics and used the instrument of ascertainment of dementia 8 (AD8) to ind out
suspected dementia ones. he result showed a higher ratio (24.1%) of suspected dementia in the outpatient department of a hospital,
500 out of 2017 subjects, than that in the general population. he median (interquartile range) age was signiicantly higher in the
suspected dementia participants (70, (62, 77)) compared to that in nonsuspected dementia ones (65, (60, 73)), and the probability
of suspected dementia was signiicantly increasing with age ( < 0.001). Instead of screening dementia in general population,
screening people at the risk of dementia could be the practicable and important issues in the care of dementia.
1. Introduction
Dementia is a major public health problem related to the
aging population in developed countries. he aged pop-
ulation has increased rapidly in Taiwan, from 10.74% in
2010 to 11.53% in 2013 and is estimated to reach 20% in
2025 [1]. With the rapidly increasing aged population, the
global prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is expected to
dramatically increase by 2050, with Asia estimated to account
for 59% of worldwide cases [2]. he increasing prevalence of
cognitive impairment in the general population emphasizes
the need for early intervention and treatment.
Conducting broad dementia screening in the general
population is unreasonable because the prevalence rate of
dementia and related disorders among people is too low
to yield satisfactory results. However, because the risk of
dementia increases substantially with age, approaching 45%
among Americans aging 85 and older [3, 4], the targeted
screening of at-risk individuals is reasonable.
In addition, according to the World Alzheimer Report
from 2013 [5], people with dementia demonstrate a high level
of use regarding health services and represent a large fraction
of the healthcare costs attributed to the elderly population.
Moreover, patients with dementia have an average of 2 to
8 additional chronic diseases (comorbidities) [6, 7]. hese
chronic diseases may accelerate progression towards a state
of cognitive and functional impairment that lead to increased
Hindawi Publishing Corporation
e Scientific World Journal
Volume 2014, Article ID 138786, 6 pages
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/138786