Week 5 : Cognitive Ageing and Dementia Flashcards
Why is there an increase in life expectancy?
Lower infant mortality and lower birth rates.
Why is there a lower infant mortality?
- Nutrition
- Education
- Income
- Sanitation
- Medicine
Why is there lower birth rates?
- Family planning
- Working women
- Women’s education
List the 4 challenges of global ageing.
- Rapid shift to noncommunicable diseases (diabetes, hypertension, etc…)
- Increased risk for disability and mental disorders (e.g., Dementia)
- Shortages with provision of social and health care
services - Stigma associating old age to illness and dependency
What is dementia?
Progressive deterioration in memory, thinking, behaviour and ability to perform daily activities.
What is Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI)?
Transitional stage between normal ageing and early dementia.
Why are longitudinal studies important?
- Can study cause-and-effect relationships
- Can determine prevalence and incidence of diseases
List the two features of longitudinal studies.
- Same representative sample
- Repeated measures of variables across a period of time
List a disadvantage of longitudinal studies.
Time-consuming and expensive
Why are cross-sectional studies important?
Can determine prevalence of diseases only.
List the two features of cross-sectional studies.
- Snapshot of the population at a specific timepoint
- Different samples
List two disadvantages of cross-sectional studies.
- Cannot establish causality due to temporality issue
- Not expensive and do not take a long time
What are the challenges with comparing results across studies?
- Inconsistencies in methodology makes cross-study
comparisons difficult - Different criteria used to classify dementia will identify different individuals as having dementia = this will affect estimates of prevalence and incidence
