Behavioural Disturbances in Patients with Diagnosis of Neurocognitive Disorder in Bogotá (Colombia)

Abstract

Introduction: The main aim of this study is to determine the prevalence of behavioural disturbances (BD) in a group of patients with diagnosis of neurocognitive disorders assessed by a memory clinic in a referral assessment centre in Bogotá, Colombia, in 2015.

Material and methods: This is an observational, retrospective descriptive study of 507 patients with a diagnosis of neurocognitive disorder (according to DSM-5 criteria) evaluated in a referral centre in Bogotá, Colombia, in 2015.

Results: Among the group of patients assessed, analyses reveal mean age for minor neurocognitive disorders of 71.04 years, and 75.32 years for major neurocognitive disorder (P <0.001). A total of 62.72% of the sample were female. The most prevalent aetiology of the neurocognitive disorders was Alzheimer's disease, followed by behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia and neurocognitive disorders due to multiple aetiologies. BD occur more frequently in neurocognitive disorder due to behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia (100%), Alzheimer's disease (77.29%) and vascular disease (76.19%). The most prevalent BD in the group assessed were apathy (50.75%), irritability (48.45%), aggression (16.6%), and emotional lability (14.76%).

Conclusions: BD are highly prevalent in patients with diagnosis of major neurocognitive disorder. BD are more prevalent in behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia than any other group. Apathy, irritability, emotional lability and aggression are the BD that occur with greater prevalence in our sample. We discuss the importance of BD in the clinical progression of neurocognitive disorders.

Keywords: Apathy; Apatía; Behavioural symptoms; Demencia; Dementia; Neurocognitive disorder; Síntomas conductuales; Trastorno neurocognoscitivo.