Objective: The goal is to evaluate to what extent the results of a research study on the effects of non-pharmacological efforts in dementia care can be generalized to the whole population of dementia patients.
Design: The demographic and socio-economic characteristics of the 128 participants of a randomized controlled study on the effects of caregiver education were compared with those of all the 64,856 elderly in the City of Zurich, of all 218 demented patients entering a City of Zurich nursing home during 6 months and of all 187 demented inhabitants evaluated during 2 years at a communal memory clinic.
Materials and Methods: The income and revenue were derived from official tax records. The characteristics of the different populations were compared by chi square or t-tests.
Results: The method of recruitment of the study populations (by media, by referral of physician, by memory clinic) had no significant influence on any of the demographic or socio-economic parameters.
As expected, in an study of caregiver education the study participants were younger, more often male and married than all other populations (p < 0.01). The study population had significantly (p < 0.01) higher education than all other populations and the nursing home entry population had less with minimal education than all elderly in the city (p < 0.05). The study population had higher income and revenue than the 3 other populations (p < 0.01) but the memory clinic population whose revenue was similar.
The 40% socio-economic weakest elderly of the general population made up only 20% of the study population, but about 50% of the nursing home entry population and equally 40% in the memory clinic population.
Conclusion: Results of the study of non-pharmacological interventions with dementia patients can not be generalized without controlling for the fact of under representation of the socio-economically weakest.
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