title: Changing demographics and neurologic disease in the elderly.
abstract: Mortality from several neurologic diseases has increased dramatically over the past 4 decades among the elderly in developed countries. This trend usually has been attributed to better case ascertainment in recent years. Corresponding demographic changes in the elderly population in developed nations over this same period, a manifestation of differential survival, are sufficient to have contributed substantially to the observed increasing burden of these neurologic diseases. The selective effect of differential survival on the surviving population gene pool is an additional explanation for the observed increasing burden of several neurologic diseases associated with senescence.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, West Virginia University School of Medicine, Morgantown, USA.
authors.forename: J E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Riggs
mesh_terms: D017677:Age Distribution; D000368:Aged / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D000369:Aged, 80 and over / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015988:Cohort Effect; D003710:Demography; D004198:Disease Susceptibility / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D020022:Genetic Predisposition to Disease; D005828:Genetics, Population; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009026:Mortality; D009422:Nervous System Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000235:genetics; D017678:Sex Distribution; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology