Immediate causes of death of demented and non-demented elderly.
OBJECTIVE
To investigate the immediate causes of death, in autopsied demented and non-demented elderly.


METHODS
Retrospective clinicopathologic correlations.


METHODS
Acute and intermediate care geriatric hospital.


METHODS
342 hospitalized demented and non-demented elderly (mean age 84.94 +/- 6.9 years) who underwent consecutive postmortem examinations: 120 demented patients with either vascular dementia (VaD, n = 34), mixed dementia (MD, n = 65) or Alzheimer's disease (AD, n=21) neuropathologically confirmed and 222 nondemented elderly.


RESULTS
Primary causes of death were similar in both demented and non-demented patients; the commonest were cardiovascular disease and bronchopneumonia. Cardiac causes of death and especially cardiac failure were more frequent in VaD than in AD or MD (respectively P = 0.027 and 0.005). Dementia was an underlying but never a primary cause of death.


CONCLUSIONS
Immediate causes of death are similar in elderly demented and non-demented patients.
Department of Geriatrics, Geneva University Hospitals, Switzerland.
S
S
Kammoun
G
G
Gold
C
C
Bouras
P
P
Giannakopoulos
W
W
McGee
F
F
Herrmann
J P
JP
Michel
D000368:Aged; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000150:complications*; D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000401:mortality; D002423:Cause of Death; D015140:Dementia, Vascular / Q000150:complications*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011014:Pneumonia / Q000401:mortality; D012189:Retrospective Studies