Rajkumar S, Kumar S, Thara R
Int J Geriatr Psychiatry. 1997 Jul;12(7):702-7. doi: 10.1002/(sici)1099-1166(199707)12:7<702::aid-gps489>3.0.co;2-h.
A study to estimate the prevalence of dementia in a rural population was conducted in a community located on the outskirts of Madras city in South India. Seven hundred and fifty elderly 60 years of age and older, selected using the cluster sampling technique, were interviewed using the Geriatric Mental State schedule (GMS). The prevalence of dementia was 3.5%, the percentage increasing with age. These rural prevalence estimates were higher than in urban settings (WHO multicentre study on cognitive impairment and dementia in developed and developing countries, unpublished) and male/female differences were negligible. The difficulties associated with the use of the GMS in a non-literature rural population are discussed. The implications of these findings for India's growing elderly population are highlighted.
在印度南部马德拉斯市郊区的一个社区开展了一项旨在估算农村人口痴呆症患病率的研究。采用整群抽样技术选取了750名60岁及以上的老年人，使用老年精神状态检查表（GMS）对他们进行访谈。痴呆症患病率为3.5%，该比例随年龄增长而上升。这些农村患病率估计值高于城市地区（世界卫生组织关于发达国家和发展中国家认知障碍和痴呆症的多中心研究，未发表），且男性/女性差异可忽略不计。讨论了在非识字农村人口中使用GMS所面临的困难。强调了这些研究结果对印度不断增长的老年人口的影响。
