Diagnosis of dementia by medical practitioners: a national study among older adults in Singapore

Abstract

Objectives: Dementia is inevitably associated with an ageing population which has tremendous public health, social and economic implications. Yet the extant evidence suggests that the diagnosis of dementia in general is neither timely nor accurate. The aim of this present study was to establish the prevalence of dementia as diagnosed by medical practitioners in Singapore and its associated factors.

Method: The analysis is based on a national epidemiological study of older adults in Singapore which had established the prevalence of dementia using the 10/66 protocol. It was a community based survey, and face-to-face interviews were conducted with 2565 respondents (a response rate of 66%) and 2421 informants.

Results: In all, 3% of the respondents were diagnosed by a medical practitioner to have dementia of which 11.5% were diagnosed by general practitioners. Only 30.3% were prescribed medications specifically for dementia. Those with comorbid depression were more likely to be diagnosed to have dementia.

Conclusion: The apparent low rate of diagnosis by medical practitioners is in line with studies done in the West. There is a need to elucidate the reasons underlying this under-diagnosis in order to better address this gap.

Keywords:

• ageing
• dementia
• depression
• general practitioners
• Singapore

Acknowledgements

The study was funded by the Ministry of Health, Singapore and the Singapore Millennium Foundation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

Ministry of Health, Singapore; Singapore Millennium Foundation of the Temasek Trust.