Profile of the care in patients with dementia in Primary Health Care.

Abstract

Background. Dementia is a syndrome that cannot be considered a consequence of normal ageing. It is the main cause for disability and dependence among the elderly all over the world. Currently, there is no treatment that can cure or reverse the evolution of this disease. However, there are risk and protective factors that have a direct influence on the appearance of dementia This disease has a major impact, not only on the patients themselves, but also on their families, caregivers and the community at large. Consequently, it is essential to approach the management of those patients from the field of healthcare, both through medical consultation, with the detection, treatment and monitoring of the disease, and through nursing services, for control and monitoring. Primary care (PC) consultations are the first place where citizens with some kind of cognitive impairment go. Our objective is to analyze the assistance and profile received by these patients in Salamanca from the Primary Health Care teams. Methods. We performed a retrospective study from the year 2017 to the year 2019, using the computer software Medora 4 as a source for data. Our sample was created from 3483 registered patients, with ages between 0 and 98 years, with an average age of ± 79.88 years. Our results show that 76.7% of the patients are women with some type of dementia, and the most common diagnosis is Alzheimer's disease (AD). Statistically significant relationship was found between the diagnoses of depression and dementia.