A systematic review of risk factors for Alzheimer's disease and strategies for prevention in China

Abstract

Background: Alzheimer’s disease, one type of dementia, is predicted to have great impact on society and economy. This effect increases rapidly especially in developing countries. The number of people with Alzheimer’s disease is huge due to the large population in China where the effects of this disease are amplified by the one-child policy.

Objective: To review the risk factors of Alzheimer’s disease in different countries and offer some suggestions that how to prevent Alzheimer’s Disease in China that has very limited research on Alzheimer’s disease. To make recommendations for potential strategies to be implemented by policy-makers, government or other stakeholders.

Method and results: Relevant studies which identified the risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease and evaluated the interventions and treatments for reducing the risk of getting Alzheimer’s disease, that were published between 1990 and 2012 were searched in PubMed and Google Academic using specific keywords. A total of 1071 studies were found and 62 used. Based on this systematic review, the risk factors of Alzheimer’s disease are age, lifestyle, family history and genetics, vascular, mild cognitive impairment, head injury as well as early-life negative events. There appear to be several important contributions to Alzheimer’s disease prevention including diet, cognitive activity, physical activity, social engagement, smoking cessation, and alcohol ingestion or simply being optimistic.

Conclusion: This review has included the potential risk factors of Alzheimer's disease and the ways of preventing Alzheimer's disease, as well as to produce some possible strategies of preventing Alzheimer's disease based on the situation in China for the Chinese government and policy makers such as to use media as an important channel to draw people's attention about Alzheimer's disease and to educate about preventive factors. There should be government-funded education and health services in the rural areas and plans to build more leisure and sports centers in China. The government should also subsidize hospitals and medical centers to provide affordable or even free health examinations for people and build a central database for the purpose of recording, analysis and research into Alzheimer's disease for better understanding of the disease. Medical professionals and volunteers can help to enhance this database by the implementation of data collection to look for symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. If the patients appear to have such symptoms, further data collection should be taking place, such as family history of Alzheimer’s disease, health status, head injuries, family status, characteristics and behavior, income levels, residential areas and other background information of the patients as part of their work whenever and wherever they go, especially in rural areas.