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[p4–171]: the Diagnostic Challenge of Psychiatric Symptoms in Patients With Dementia in the Cuban Population

Year: 2017
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: In Dementia psychiatric symptoms are present at the moment of the diagnosis and represent one of the main complaints during the course of the disease. Patients with Dementia often are mistaken as a primary psychiatric disorder either because a psychiatric prodrome presentation or because neuropsychiatric symptoms of the disease. From a population-based study in Havana, Cuba, 323 subjects with the diagnosis of Dementia were asses in order to identify behavioral and psychological symptoms at presentation of the disease. Parallel to this a subsample of 100 patients with etiological diagnosis (BvFTD=21, AD=33, LBD=16, VaD=13, Others=17) were study in order to evaluate main psychiatric presentations according to the etiology of the Dementia syndrome. Behavioral and psychological symptoms were identified in 75.7% of patients studied and 33.6% receive a misdiagnosis of primary psychiatric disorder. Depression was the most common psychiatric diagnosis in AD (23.8%) and LBD (46.5%), in those with BvFTD, bipolar disorder was the most frequent misdiagnosis in men and depression in women. In the whole sample activity disorder (60.4%), physical or verbal aggression (52.7%) and sleep disorders (43.4%); paranoid hallucinations, anxiety and phobias (33.8%) were present at the presentation of the disease. BvFTD patients and those at younger age present a higher risk (p<0.05) of misdiagnosis. Most of the patients studied had psychiatric symptoms at presentation. Dementia was often mistaken for psychiatric disease with bvFTD and LBD patients at highest risk for misdiagnosis. In most of the cases the misdiagnosis led to delayed and inappropriate treatment.
DOI: 10.1016/j.jalz.2017.06.2038
Language: English
Field: Medicine
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2765618039
FWCI:
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Cited by: 1
Related to: 10