Prevalencia y factores asociados al deterioro cognitivo en adultos mayores de los asilos de la ciudad de Cuenca. 2014

Abstract

Background: Knowing that cognitive impairment of the elderly is the most common and disabling neurological disease in the elderly people, also constitutes a first order public health problem, only after cancer and acute myocardial infarction, in addition to that it has been found that in our country there are no studies on the prevalence of cognitive impairment in the elderly and more specifically at the level of nursing home for elderly in Cuenca. Objective: determine the prevalence and associated factors with cognitive impairment in the nursing home for elderly of Cuenca in 2014. Methodology: A descriptive cross-sectional study conducted in the Nursing Home of the City of Cuenca, we randomly selected 182 older adults, who were asked about age, gender, education, work, time of residence at the nursing home and diagnosed chronic disease; the Cognitive status was evaluated using the Mini-Mental Test, after collecting data, the database was created in SPSS version 15, after this, the results were presented in simple tables of frequencies and to prove the hypothesis we use the chi square tested, prevalence ratio (PR) and p value with 95% confidence. Results: Of a group of 182 older adults, the average age of the population stood at 80.92 years (SD = 9.97 years), female gender being the most prevalent with 59.3%; the prevalence of risk factors was: no education 46.2%; 53.8% unemployed; HTA 40.7%; DMT2 8.8%; Parkinson 9.3%; dementia 9.9%; hypothyroidism 9.9%. The prevalence of cognitive impairment was 56% and 17% of dementia; no statistically significant difference was found between the results of Test Minimental at the admission in the nursing home, and at the time of evaluation, although the average residence in the institution was 5.26 years (SD = 5.28 years). The only statistically significant risk factor was the female gender RP 1.3 (95% CI 1.1-1.7) with p = 0.0006. Conclusions: The prevalence of cognitive impairment in our population is high, over 60%; the female sex increases the probability of cognitive impairment, and however, the chronic diseases were not associated. KEY WORDS: PREVALENCE, RISK FACTORS, COGNITION DISORDERS, AGED, HOMES FOR THE AGED, CUENCA-ECUADOR