Cognitive impairment and dementia in elderly people living in rural Benin, west Africa.

BACKGROUND/AIMS Dementia is increasing as a priority public health problem because of the ageing of the world population. Our goal was to estimate dementia and cognitive impairment prevalence in an elderly population of rural Benin. METHODS In a door-to-door survey, elderly people aged 65 years and above were screened using the Community Screening Interview for Dementia and the Five-Word Test. RESULTS The prevalence of cognitive impairment was 10.4% and that of dementia was 2.6%. Age, current depressive disorder and absence of the APOE epsilon2 allele were significantly associated with cognitive impairment. CONCLUSION Prevalence of dementia and cognitive impairment appears to be lower in this study than in developed countries.