The prevalence of dementia in a metropolitan city of South Korea.
BACKGROUND
There are few studies on the prevalence of dementia in South Korea. This study was designed to estimate the prevalence rate of dementia in a metropolitan city of South Korea, Busan.


METHODS
This was a cross-sectional epidemiological study of 1101 residents aged 65 or over in a metropolitan city (Busan) as of 31 December 2001 who were selected with the stratified three-stage cluster sampling. Dementia was assessed by two-stage examination with Mini-Mental State Examination-Korean version (MMSE-K), psychometric measures and the Barthel index. Crude and sex-age adjusted prevalence rate were obtained.


RESULTS
The crude rate was 7.4% (men 2.4%, women 10.5%). The sex-age adjusted rate was 7.0% (men 2.5%, women 9.0%) and 8.0% (men 2.7%, women 10.0%) when adjusted with Busan and whole Korean population, respectively.


CONCLUSIONS
These results were lower than those of other domestic studies. This is the first well-designed total-population based epidemiologic study on the prevalence rate of dementia of the aged residing in Busan city. Further studies for evaluating the relationships with type and severity of dementia are needed.
Kim
Jungsoon
J
Department of Nursing, College of Medicine, Pusan National University, Busan, South Korea.
Jeong
Ihnsook
I
Chun
Jin-Ho
JH
Lee
Suill
S
D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002947:Cities; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D003704:Dementia / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D016021:Epidemiologic Studies; D005260:Female; D015577:Geriatric Assessment; D006801:Humans; D007723:Korea / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D015995:Prevalence; D014504:Urban Health