December 10, 2001 Slide 1
Mortality, the dementias, death certificates,Creutzfeld-Jakob disease and mad cows
or
if there were an epidemic of variantCJD among older people would we
be able to detect it?
Michael DeweyJim Lowe
Sally Barton
University of Nottingham
December 10, 2001 Slide 2
Dementia and mortality
• Theory - relationship between prevalence,incidence and mortality
• Practical - what advice to give to patientsand their carers
• Policy - healthy life expectancy
December 10, 2001 Slide 3
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1− ix −mxix 1− φmx mx φmx
Incidence, prevalence and mortality
December 10, 2001 Slide 4
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Top graphs men, left hand graph life ex-pectancy and life expectancy with dementiaright hand graph life expectancy and life ex-pectancy with functional impairment
December 10, 2001 Slide 5
Many studies of dementia and mortality are ofpatient cohorts
Systematic review of community studies
Found 68 studies of dementia or cognitive im-pairment and mortality using community sam-ples
For 6 of the studies there is sufficient informa-tion in the published papers to combine age-adjusted odds ratios.
Study OR 95% ci
Bonaiutoa 7·88 3.71 to 16.75Davidsona 4·39 2.29 to 8.05Sazb 3·7 2.0 to 6.7Juva 3·45 1.78 to 6.72Meller 2·08 1.56 to 2.77Evans 1·80 1.13 to 2.85
Pooled 2·63 2.17 to 3.21aAdjusted for age and sexbAdjusted for age, sex and education
December 10, 2001 Slide 6
0 10 20
Bonaiuto
Davidson
Saz
Juva
Meller
Evans
Pooled
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Community studies
December 10, 2001 Slide 7
Effect Studies Result
AD v VaD 4 Greater for VaDSex 9 Women higher risk in 9
of 16 comparisonsSeverity 2 From logistic regression
χ22 = 7.99, more severe
higher riskAge 3 From logistic regression
χ21 = 3.82, smaller risk
for older
Summary of effect modifiers for mortality anddementia and depression
December 10, 2001 Slide 8
What do we know now?
• Elevated risk which increases with sever-ity.
• Possibly greater for VaD and possibly lessfor increased age.
What do we not know?
• What they die of
• What happens for other dementias
December 10, 2001 Slide 9
Death certificate studies
Why have these been undertaken?
A F Jorm, A S Henderson, and P A Jacomb.Regional differences in mortality from demen-tia in Australia: an analysis of death certificatedata. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 79:179–85, 1989 succintly states ’Some researchershave attempted to circumvent the expense anddifficulties of conventional prevalence studies byusing mortality data derived from death certifi-cates. Mortality data are readily available indeveloped countries and provide a potentiallyeconomical way of investigating regional differ-ences with a country’
Studies vary as to whether death with or fromdementia
December 10, 2001 Slide 10
Study Country Time period Examined
Newman Canada 1965-83 DementiaMartyn Eng & Wal 1968-78 DementiaJordan U S 1968-73 DementiaFlaten Norway 1969-83 DementiaChandra U S 1971, 73-78 DementiaForbes Canada 1974-91 DementiaJorm Australia 1979-85 Dementia, ADKirby Eng & Wal 1979-96 Dementia, ADAylin Eng & Wal 1979-96 Dementia, CJDImaizumi Japan 1979-90 ADAnon U S 1979-87 ADHoyert U S 1979-91 ADHoyert U S 1979-96 ADTassinari Italy 1980-89 DementiaLanska U S 1986 DementiaWilkins Canada 1990-1993 Dementia
Studies of dementia recorded on death certifi-cates in chronological order of commencementof study period
December 10, 2001 Slide 11
What do they find?
• Secular change - rise (offset by decreasein deaths from senility)
• Age - rise
• Region - variation
• Sex - ?
• Race - white > black (US studies only)
December 10, 2001 Slide 12
Study Age-specific rate for 70+ groupa
Both Men WomenImaizumi 0·28 0·30Hoyert (96) 2·6 1·8Chandra 2·45 1·81Anonymous White 2·7
Black 1·0Jordanb 1Newman 10·52 9·33Flatenb 100 70Jormb 3
0·4 % of deathsForbes 0·34 % of deathsWilkins 2·4 % of deaths from
5·8 % of deaths withaPer 100000 of population, for year nearest to 1979, and for
age group which includes 70-74 yearsbInterpolated from graph in paper
Studies which examined the relationship withage, listed in order of rate
December 10, 2001 Slide 13
D J Lanska. Dementia mortality in the UnitedStates. Results of the 1986 National MortalityFollowback Survey. Neurology, 50:362–7, 1998
US excluding Oregon, 89% response rate12275/18733 with at least one facility record
Men WomenFacility 151.7 111.9From dementia 19.1 16.0With dementia 47.1 44.5Informant 299.2 248.0All sources 374.2 302.1
Dementia deaths per 100000
December 10, 2001 Slide 14
CertsFrom With Facility
Creutzfeld-Jakob 0.0 0.5 0.0Vascular 1.9 6.0 0.1Alcoholic 0.3 0.1 5.3Alzheimer’s 71.3 54.3 69.7Pick’s 1.4 0.5 0.0Mixed 0.0 0.0 2.9Other and unspecified 25.1 38.6 22.0
Percent of deaths from each source with spec-ified diagnosis
595000 with dementia. Compare 531000 withcancer, 490000 with ischaemic heart disease,150000 with stroke
December 10, 2001 Slide 15
M Ganguli and E G Rodriguez. Reporting ofdementia on death certificates: a communitystudy. Journal of the American Geriatrics Soci-ety, 47(7):842–9, 1999
8 year followup of community cohort aged 65and over 527/1422 deaths and death certifi-cates
Study diagDementia No dementia
Dementia 41 4Other CNS 54 54Other 77 297Total 172 355
95% ciSensitivity 24 18 31Specificity 99 97 99Pos pred val 91 79 98Neg pred val 92 89 94
More likely to have mention of dementia if moresevere, Probable AD (Possible no increasedrisk) and living in a long term care institution.
December 10, 2001 Slide 16
Nottingham data 1995-1998 all deaths aged15+
Mention of dementia (ICD 290) on death cer-tificates
Nott WilkinsCan US
65-74 92/6744 = 1.4 1.8 1.375-84 389/9158 = 4.3 6.1 4.485+ 532/6967 = 7.6 9.2 7.7
How many dementias would we have expected?
65-69 1.770-74 2.375-79 7.280-84 17.685+ 27.3
Prevalence of dementia in Nottingham
December 10, 2001 Slide 17
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Probability of having a post mortem for with de-mentia (dashed line) and without (solid line) foreach of nine diagnostic categories for four agegroups (1=15-50, 2=50-69, 3=70-79, 4=80and over)
December 10, 2001 Slide 18
Association with causes
K Wilkins, G F Parsons, J F Gentleman, andW F Forbes. Deaths due to dementia: an anal-ysis of multiple-cause-of-death data. ChronicDiseases in Canada, 20(1):26–35, 1999
Death certificate study in Canada
December 10, 2001 Slide 19
Mention of dementia positively associated with
Pneumonia and influenzaConditions symptomatic of dementia
• Depression• Parkinson’s disease
Arising from effects of dementia• Malnutrition, electrolyte imbalance,
pneumonitis due to ingestion ofsolids/liquids, symptoms involvingdigestive system, inhalation or in-gestion of object causing obstruc-tion of respiratory tract or suffoca-tion
• Skin ulcer• Fractured neck of femur, fracture
cause unspecifiedVascular disease
• Atherosclerosis• Transient cerebral ischaemia
Other• Epilepsy• Osteoarthritis
December 10, 2001 Slide 20
Mention of dementia negatively associated with
Cancer• Lung, digestive system, other
Heart disease• Acute MI• Other chronic IHD• Cardiac dysrhythmias• Heart failure• Symptoms involving cardiovascular
systemRespiratory
• Emphysema• Chronic airways obstruction• Other disease of lung
Other• Essential hypertension• Intracerebral haemorrhage• Aortic aneurysm• Chronic renal failure, renal failure
unspecified• Surgical operation as a cause of ab-
normal reaction or later complica-tion
December 10, 2001 Slide 21
What causes are associated in Nottingham?
Positively
• Respiratory• Cerebrovascular• Endocrine/metabolic
Negatively
• Neoplasms
December 10, 2001 Slide 22
CJD in the UK
Year Spor Iatr Fam GSSa vCJD Total1990 28 5 0 0 - 331991 32 1 3 0 - 361992 44 2 5 1 - 521993 38 4 2 2 - 461994 51 1 4 3 - 591995 35 4 2 3 3 471996 40 4 2 4 10 601997 59 6 4 1 10 801998 63 3 4 1 18 891999 61 6 2 0 15 842000 48 1 2 1 28 80
aGerstmann-Straussler-Scheinker
It is assumed that ingestion of infected materialoccurred between 1980 and 1989
December 10, 2001 Slide 23
Age distribution of onsets
Age N5-9 0
10-14 315-19 1620-24 2325-29 2330-34 1335-39 1040-44 345-49 150-54 455-59 060-64 065-69 070-74 1
Mean age 28 years, only 6 out of 90 deathsolder than 50 compared with 93% of sporadicCJD
December 10, 2001 Slide 24
What are the problems in surveillance?
0 out of Upper 95%confidence limit
100 0·03621671000 0·0036821
10000 0·0003688100000 0·0000369
10n ' 3·0×10−n
The prevalence of sporadic CJD is approxi-mately 0.5× 10−6 to 1.0× 10−6
December 10, 2001 Slide 25
Various studies have given us substantial infor-mation about:
• The relationship between dementia andmortality
• The value of death certificate studies
• The correlates of death from and with de-mentia
Despite all this it seems difficult to see how asurveillance operation in older people can bemounted just using routine data because
• Few deaths come to post mortem
• Dementia deaths seem less likely to havea post mortem