[Behavioural disorders in Alzheimer's disease. Data from a populational study].
OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this work was to study the characteristics of the behavioural disorders (non-cognitive or neuropsychiatric symptoms) presented by subjects with Alzheimer's disease from a sample of the population together with their relation to the cognitive and functional impairment suffered by these patients.


METHODS
NEDICES is a longitudinal populational study based on the census of neurological diseases in subjects above the age of 64. In 2001, a study was conducted of the situation of 83 subjects who had started suffering from Alzheimer's disease between 1994 and 1997. Due to death and a number of other reasons, only 32 of them could be examined. Patients were administered a structured interview with scales referring to the cognitive state, functional capacity, severity of the dementia and the presence and severity of neuropsychiatric disorders.


RESULTS
All the patients studied presented some non-cognitive symptom. Apathy was the most frequent (93.8%), followed by irritability (81.1%), anxiety (75.0%), dysphoria (71.8%) and agitation-aggressiveness (56.2%). The least frequent were deliria (50.2%), altered nocturnal behaviour and aberrant motor activity (37.6%), altered appetite and eating, and hallucinations (24.9%), disinhibition (21.8%) and euphoria (21.6%). The degree of cognitive impairment and the presence of non-cognitive symptoms exerted a similar and independent effect on functional capacity. Only 56.3% of the patients were treated with some kind of anticholinesterase or psychotropic medication.


CONCLUSIONS
Our census-based populational study confirmed the high prevalence rate of non-cognitive symptoms in patients with Alzheimer's disease. These data confirm the notion that these symptoms are intrinsic manifestations of the disease.
de Toledo
M
M
Servicio de Neurología, Hospital Universitario de Guadalajara, Guadalajara. mdetoledo@yahoo.com
Bermejo-Pareja
F
F
Vega-Quiroga
S
S
Muñoz-García
D
D
D000368:Aged; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001526:Behavioral Symptoms; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology*; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests