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Comorbidity Burden of Dementia: A Hospital-Based Retrospective Study from 2003 to 2012 in Seven Cities in China

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Abstract

Dementia is increasing dramatically and imposes a huge burden on society. To date, there is a lack of data on the health status of patients with dementia in China. In an attempt to investigate the comorbidity burden of dementia patients in China at the national level, we enrolled 2,938 patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD), vascular dementia (VaD), or other types of dementia, who were admitted to tertiary hospitals in seven regions of China from January 2003 to December 2012. The Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI) was used to evaluate the comorbidity burden of the patients with dementia. Among these patients, 53.4% had AD, 26.3% had VaD, and 20.3% had other types of dementia. The CCI was 3.0 ± 1.9 for all patients, 3.4 ± 1.8 for those with VaD, and 3.0 ± 2.1 for those with AD. The CCI increased with age in all patients, and the length of hospital stay and daily expenses rose with age and CCI. Males had a higher CCI and a longer stay than females. Moreover, patients admitted in the last 5 years of the study had a higher CCI than those admitted in the first 5 years. We found that the comorbidity burden of patients with dementia is heavy. These findings provide a better understanding of the overall health status of dementia patients, and help to increase the awareness of clinicians and policy-makers to improve medical care for patients.

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Acknowledgements

We thank all of the participants who were enrolled in the study. This study was supported by a Chongqing Social Science Plan Project (2015YBSH142).

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Author notes

  1. Qing-Hua Wang, Xin Wang and Xian-Le Bu have contributed equally to this manuscript.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurology and Center for Clinical Neuroscience, Daping Hospital, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing, China

    Qing-Hua Wang, Xin Wang, Xian-Le Bu, Yan Lian, Chang-Yue Gao, Li-Li Zhang, Zhi-Qiang Xu, Meng Zhang, Hua-Dong Zhou & Yan-Jiang Wang

  2. Department of Preventive Medicine, Daping Hospital, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing, China

    Yan Lian

  3. Department of Neurology, Chengdu General Hospital of the PLA, Chengdu, China

    Yang Xiang & Qing-Song Wang

  4. Department of Neurology, Lanzhou General Hospital of the PLA, Lanzhou, China

    Hong-Bo Luo & Xiang-Qun Shi

  5. Department of Neurology, Guangzhou General Hospital of the PLA, Guangzhou, China

    Hai-Qiang Zou

  6. Department of Neurology, Wuhan General Hospital of the PLA, Wuhan, China

    Jie Pu & Qiang Wu

  7. Department of Neurology, Shenyang General Hospital of the PLA, Shenyang, China

    Zhong-He Zhou & Hui-Sheng Chen

  8. Department of Neurology, Fuzhou General Hospital, Fujian Medical University, Fuzhou, China

    Xiao-Ping Cui & Hang Lin

  9. Department of Prevention Medicine, Guangzhou General Hospital of the PLA, Guangzhou, China

    Wei Han

Authors
  1. Qing-Hua Wang
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  2. Xin Wang
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  3. Xian-Le Bu
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  4. Yan Lian
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  5. Yang Xiang
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Correspondence to Yan-Jiang Wang.

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Wang, QH., Wang, X., Bu, XL. et al. Comorbidity Burden of Dementia: A Hospital-Based Retrospective Study from 2003 to 2012 in Seven Cities in China. Neurosci. Bull. 33, 703–710 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12264-017-0193-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12264-017-0193-3

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