Back to Search
Start Over
The course of neuropsychiatric symptoms in community-dwelling patients with dementia: a systematic review.
- Source :
-
International psychogeriatrics [Int Psychogeriatr] 2015 Mar; Vol. 27 (3), pp. 385-405. Date of Electronic Publication: 2014 Nov 18. - Publication Year :
- 2015
-
Abstract
- Background: Neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS) often occur in patients with dementia. Understanding the course of NPS in dementia is important for healthcare professionals for psycho-educational purposes and adequate and timely interventions to prevent or diminish NPS as much as possible.<br />Methods: We conducted a systematic literature search in several electronic databases. We combined search strings for the terms dementia, community-dwelling, cohort studies and NPS. Screening titles and abstracts, assessing the methodological quality and data-extraction were independently conducted by at least two authors.<br />Results: This literature search revealed 6605 unique records of which 23 studies were included in data synthesis. In total 7184 patients participated in the included studies with a mean number of 312. Sixty percent of the participants were female and the mean age of all participants was 74.8 years. Follow-up varied between 1 and 6 years; in 17 studies loss to follow-up was less than 20% per year. NPS are highly prevalent, incident and persistent although frequency parameters vary considerably across studies. Delusions/delusional misidentification, wandering/agitation, aberrant motor behavior/motor hyperactivity and apathy are the most common NPS. For hallucinations, delusions/delusional misidentification, paranoia, aggression, wandering/agitation, aberrant motor behavior/motor hyperactivity, disinhibition, apathy, and sleep disturbance increasing trends in point prevalence rates have been found.<br />Conclusions: NPS in community-dwelling patients are frequent and persistent. The increasing trends of several NPS in the course of dementia require a preventive approach of professional caretakers. For such an approach, a timely diagnosis and adequate professional support to prevent or diminish these problems is necessary.
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 1741-203X
- Volume :
- 27
- Issue :
- 3
- Database :
- MEDLINE
- Journal :
- International psychogeriatrics
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 25403309
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1017/S1041610214002282