Objective: To investigate the impact of early brain development and psychosocial risk factors throughout the life span on risk of dementia in old age.
Design: A longitudinal study on a representative sample of elderly persons, from Gothenburg, Sweden, who were followed from age 70 to age 100.
Materials and Methods: Dementia was defined according to the DSM-III-R. Information on eighteen psychosocial risk factors occurring from childhood to old age were collected at age 70. Total intracranial volume (TICV), an indirect measure of early brain growth, was measured with quantitative neuroimaging at age 85.
Results: There was a dose-response relationship between the number of psychosocial risk factors and the incidence of dementia. Factors occurring before age 16 had the strongest risk, including death of a parent before that age. TICV was smaller in 85-year-olds with dementia. Those with a head size in the smallest tertile had an OR for dementia of 2.7 (95%-CI 1.4-5.1; p=0.003). Small head size increased the risk of dementia substantially in subjects with white matter lesions on CT (OR 37.3, 95%-CI 8.7-159.0).
Conclusion: Our findings suggest that factors occurring very early in life may be vulnerability factors for the development of dementia in old age.
Back to S049 Life-Span Risk Factors for the Development of Dementia
Back to The Eleventh International Congress