Incidence

Little is known about the association between cognitive dysfunction among informal caregivers and patients' plans and preferences for patients' end of life care. We report on the frequency of cognitive dysfunction among both patients and caregivers and examine associations between caregivers' cognitive screening scores and end of life plans and preferences of patients with advanced cancer.

OBJECTIVE: To estimate the burden of Alzheimer's disease (AD, including 'mixed' dementia) in New Zealand in 2006, and project this burden out to 2031. METHOD: An incidence to prevalence methodology was utilized, the foundation of which is a discrete time Markov model allowing for multiple stages of disease (early vs late). Population estimates and projections, and all-cause mortality rates, were obtained from Statistics New Zealand.