ThaÃsa L Rodrigues
Mackenzie University, Brazil
Title: Alzheimer’s disease and Type 3 Diabetes Mellitus
Biography
Biography: ThaÃsa L Rodrigues
Abstract
Diabetes Mellitus (DM) is a disease with a high and growing prevalence in most countries. Recently, literature found a link between DM and the risk of developing Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), one of the main disorders. Objective: verify the prevalence of DM among individuals with AD. A descriptive, observational, cross-sectional study was carried out, in which 100 elderly people aged 60 years or over, of both genders and diagnosed with AD were studied. The participants, aged 18 years old or over, were the direct family members or those responsible for the care of those elderly people. Sociodemographic and clinical information was collected through an online questionnaire on the Google Forms platform and tabulated in the Microsoft Office Excel program. Assesment scales of BADLs (Basic Activities of Daily Living) and IADLS (Instrumental Activities of Daily Living) as well as the adapted QDRS (Quick Dementia Rating System) were applied and then correlated with the duration of DM using the Pearson’s Correlation Test. Most of the AD patients were female (65.7%), with a low level of education (43%), overweight or obese (48%) and has as main comorbidities DM (51.5%) and Arterial Hypertension (57.5%). Significant differences were found in the Degree of Dependency scores according to the BADL (p=0.034) and IADL (p=0.028) assessment scales, and in the QDRS as well (p=0.036). According to the Person’s Linear Correlation Coefficient, duration of Diabetes had a very low intensity correlations with duration of Alzheimer’s (r= -0.1), with the degree of dependency according BADL assessment scale (r= -0.16), and according to IADL assessment scale (r= -0.14), and the degree of dementia according to QDRS (r= -0.15). The study apparently found a correlation between DM and a worsening of DA’s symptoms, but further studies on the subject are suggested, since the sample size does not allow extrapolating the results to the population.