Post stroke dementia and its putative risk factors: a hospital - based study

Introduction:Dementia is common after stroke and has a considerable impact on mortality, rehabilitation and quality of life. There are some published articles regarding post stroke dementia but there are many controversies surrounding this topic. Our aim was to identify the prevalence of post stroke dementia 3 months after stroke and evaluation of some its putative risk factors in Iranian population. Method: In this cross-sectional study, 151 patients with acute stroke were evaluated. The diagnosis was confirmed by physical examination and neuroimaging. Three months after the stroke, all patients were visited again. The diagnosis of post stroke dementia was made according to the criteria in the DSM-IV. Demographic data were collected using a questionnaire and data about lesion location and kind of stroke were obtained according to neuroimaging. To analyze the data, descriptive statistics, and chi-square test were used. Results: In our study, 47% patients were male and the rest were female. Thirty five (23.2%) of patients had post stroke dementia(PSD) after 3 months. 70.6 % of patients were 60 years old or more. 88.7% of patients had ischemic infarction and the rest had hemorrhagic stroke . The most frequent lesion locations were temporal, frontal and parietal lobes respectively., There was no significant statistical difference between PSD and sex, age, educational status, lesion location and kind of stroke. Conclusion: Our results show that a significant portion of patients with stroke are prone to PSD. The risk of dementia occurring after a stroke does not seem to be influenced by the stroke type