Prevalence of Dementia among Elderly People Living in Cotonou, an Urban Area of Benin (West Africa)

Abstract

Background/Aims: The population of Benin is, like those of most developing countries, aging; dementia is therefore a major concern. Our goal was to estimate the prevalence of dementia in an elderly population living in urban Benin. Methods: In a cross-sectional community-based study, people aged 65 years and above were screened using the Community Screening Interview for Dementia and the Five-Word Test. Results: The prevalence of dementia was 3.7% (95% CI 2.6–4.8) overall. The figure increased with age and was higher among women than men. Conclusion: Dementia was slightly more prevalent than previously reported in a rural area of Benin, but the rate was similar to that recorded in other cities in developing countries.

Epidemiology of neurodegenerative diseases in sub-Saharan Africa: a systematic review

“…When provided, age at clinical diagnosis of disease ranged from 80.7 to 83.8 years. Alzheimer disease was the most common form of the disease, representing 57.4 to 89.4 % of all cases [30-32,34,42,45,55,56,63,71,74], followed by vascular dementia 5.7 to 31.0% of cases [30,31,45,56,74]. Four publications in Nigeria provided incidence data for dementia ranging from 8.7 to 21.8 cases per 1000 per year [35,51-53].…”

“…The most commonly used tool for dementia screening was the Community Screening Interview for Dementia (CSID) questionnaire applied in 20 publications [32,34,36,37,41-43,45-47,49,50,54,56,65,70]. The diagnosis of dementia mainly relied on the DSM-III-R/DSM-IV and ICD-10 classification [30,32,34-37,40,42-46,52-54,63,70].…”

Betyr Alzheimers sykdom demens?

“…Prevalence was similarly low in rural Benin (2.4% age-standardized for age 65+ and 2.0% for age 60+ similarly estimated) (38). The prevalence in urban Benin was higher (4.3% and 3.5%) (40) and that recorded in cities in the Central African Republic (10.1% and 8.2%) and the Republic of the Congo (7.2% and 6.0%) was substantially higher (39).…”

“…Subsequent studies from francophone countries in western and central Africa (38)(39)(40), and one further study from northern Nigeria (41) suggest a more variable prevalence, higher in urban than in rural sites, and higher in central compared with western Africa. The Nigerian study recorded a low prevalence that is consistent with findings from the earlier USA / Nigeria study (2.4% for those aged 65 and over, age-stan- suggested that the true prevalence at baseline was likely to be much closer to the 7.5% recorded for 10 / 66 dementia than the 0.9% prevalence according to DSM-IV criteria (20).…”

Michel Dumas and Pierre-Marie Preux: Promoting Tropical Neurology Silently - The Gist of Their Contributions

“…They initiated and developed long-term research and action programs for dementia in several Central African countries, despite periodic bouts of civil unrest there [2,3,4]. They also identified a tool for determining the accurate age of dementia subjects - an extremely important issue in dementia research [5] - as well as certain psychosocial factors important in the survival of demented subjects [2].…”