Prevalence of dementia in nursing home and community-dwelling older adults in Germany

BACKGROUND/AIM: We compared the prevalence of dementia in nursing home residents and community-dwelling older adults .

METHODS: Using health insurance claims data for the year 2009, we estimated the prevalence of at least three of four quarters with a diagnosis of dementia in persons aged ≥65 years.

RESULTS: Of 213,694 persons aged 65+ years, 4,584 (2.2 %) lived in nursing homes. The prevalence of dementia was 51.8 % (95 % CI 50.4-53.3) in nursing home residents and 2.7 % (95 % CI 2.6-2.8) in community-dwelling elderly. Increasing prevalences with age were found in both sexes in community-dwelling elderly. These trends were not seen in nursing home residents where prevalences were already high for the age group 65-69 years (35.7 % in males and 40.9 % in females, respectively).

CONCLUSIONS: More than half of nursing home residents suffer from dementia, which is about 19-fold higher than the prevalence in insured living in the community.