Diagnosis and treatment of dementia in neurology outpatient departments of general hospitals in China

Introduction: The status of dementia diagnosis and treatment of neurology outpatients in general hospitals in China remains unclear.

Methods: From neurology outpatients at 36 randomly selected hospitals, we first collected baseline data concerning the number of dementia doctors, memory clinics, and patients diagnosed with dementia. In stage 2, we intervened based on drawbacks discovered in stage 1, implementing a dementia initiative program. In stage 3, we reinvestigated the outpatients to determine the effects of intervention.

Results: After intervention, all 36 hospitals had established memory clinics (205 dementia doctors) compared with only 6 (47 dementia doctors) before intervention. The percentage of patients diagnosed with dementia significantly increased from 0.10% (536 dementia patients of 553,986 outpatients) in stage 1 to 0.41% (2482 dementia patients of 599,214 outpatients) in stage 3.

Discussion: Proper diagnosis and treatment are unavailable to many dementia patients because of a lack of dementia doctors and memory clinics in China.