title: The clinical characteristics of 2,789 consecutive patients in a memory clinic in China.
abstract: To explore the clinical characteristics of the Memory Clinic patients at Huashan Hospital and to provide suggestions for future research, we retrospectively reviewed the demographic, cognitive and aetiological data from 2,789 consecutive patients who attended the Memory Clinic of the Department of Neurology at Huashan Hospital from April 2003 to April 2008. The demographical distribution of the patients was as follows: there were more females (58%) than males; 58% of the patients were older than 70 years of age; and most patients (77%) had six or more years of education. The distribution of the diagnoses was as follows: degenerative or vascular dementia, 46.4%; mild cognitive impairment, 22.8%; subjective cognitive impairment, 21.7%; neurosis, 3.3%; organic cognitive impairment, 3.9%; unspecified dementia, 1.2%; and pure amnesia, 0.7%. These results showed that older patients with relatively high levels of education comprised the majority of our sample and a high percentage of the patients showed absent or mild cognitive impairment. Accordingly, future studies should focus on early diagnosis and treatment for dementia. Detailed neuropsychological tests and follow-up assessments are becoming increasingly important in the diagnosis of memory diseases in China.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology and Institute of Neurology, Huashan Hospital, State Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology, Shanghai Medical College, Fudan University, 12 Wulumuqi Zhong Road, Shanghai 200040, China.
authors.forename: Bei
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Qi-Hao
authors.initials: QH
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.forename: Mei-Rong
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Qian-Hua
authors.initials: QH
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.forename: Yan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.forename: Zhen
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Hong
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002681:China; D060825:Cognitive Dysfunction / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D003704:Dementia / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D008569:Memory Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D012189:Retrospective Studies