[Neuroepidemiology profile of the central zone of the department of Caldas (Colombia), years 2004-2005].
BACKGROUND
The neurological disease (ND) is a challenge for the medical community, cause of a high degree of morbility, mortality, deterioration in the quality of life of the patient and its family. AIM. To determine the prevalence of ND in the population of the department of Caldas (Colombia): migraine, movement disorders, cerebrovascular diseases, peripheral neuropathy, epilepsy, dementia and insomnia. This last one is innovating aspect in the published Colombian studies has not considered and therefore its prevalence with World Health Organization (WHO) methodology is not known.


METHODS
This is a population, descriptive study, of cross section. The neuroepidemiological protocol developed by the WHO, modified for Colombia was used. The suspicious cases to suffer ND were evaluated by the neurologist. The information was processed in the statistical package Epi Info 6.04d.


RESULTS
Of 787 interviews, 360 were suspicious of ND; additionally 20 non suspicious subjects were evaluated like controls. The global prevalence of ND, excluding insomnia was 13.4%, while including insomnia was 60.4%. The prevalence diseases in sequence (by 1,000 inhabitants) were: insomnia 468 (CI 95%: 433.4-504.4), migraine 278 (CI 95%: 246.3-310.2), dementia (in older 50 years) 51 (CI 95%: 15.8-87), peripheral neuropathy 48 (CI 95%: 32.7-63.4), movement disorders 25 (CI 95%: 13.8-37.0), epilepsy 24 (CI 95%: 12.8-35.5) and cerebrovascular disease 10 (CI 95%: 2.5-17.8).


CONCLUSIONS
These results show high prevalence of migraine in our community. Also, the peripheral neuropathy, movement disorders and epilepsy were more frequent than in previous investigations. Dementia and stroke presented prevalence similar to the reported one. The insomnia showed very high prevalence, but by the non possibility of comparison with other local studies, it is need conduced others studies to confirm these findings.
Díaz-Cabezas
R
R
Departamento Clinico-Quirúrgico, Facultad de Ciencias de la Salud, Universidad de Caldas, Calle 65, Manizales (Caldas), Colombia. ridiaz@epm.net.co
Ruano-Restrepo
M I
MI
Chacón-Cardona
J A
JA
Vera-González
A
A
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001480:Basal Ganglia Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology; D002561:Cerebrovascular Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology; D002648:Child; D003105:Colombia / Q000453:epidemiology; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D003704:Dementia / Q000453:epidemiology; D004827:Epilepsy / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008881:Migraine Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology; D009422:Nervous System Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology*; D010523:Peripheral Nervous System Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012424:Rural Population; D007319:Sleep Initiation and Maintenance Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D014505:Urban Population