Launer L J, Hofman A
Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Erasmus University Medical School, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
Neuroepidemiology. 1992;11(3):127-34. doi: 10.1159/000110922.
Dementing diseases, the most common of which are Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia, are highly prevalent in Europe. To progress further in the search for the etiology of these diseases, incidence studies are needed. Comparison of the data of such studies will be important; the question of whether they produce comparable and interpretable data is therefore critical. We discuss the methodologic differences between earlier and more recent studies conducted in Europe that may account for some of the variation in the incidence rates of the dementia they report. Issues to be explored in the current European studies on the incidence of dementing diseases are also described.
痴呆症在欧洲极为普遍，其中最常见的是阿尔茨海默病和血管性痴呆。为了在这些疾病的病因研究上取得进一步进展，需要开展发病率研究。比较此类研究的数据将很重要；因此，这些研究能否产生可比且可解释的数据这一问题至关重要。我们讨论了欧洲早期和近期研究之间的方法学差异，这些差异可能是它们所报告的痴呆症发病率存在一些差异的部分原因。还描述了当前欧洲痴呆症发病率研究中有待探索的问题。
