Lifetime risk of stroke and dementia: current concepts, and estimates from the Framingham Study.
Level 3 - non-randomized controlled study
Prospective cohort data (Framingham Study) reported in an epidemiological review
PubMed 18031707 · doi:10.1016/S1474-4422(07)70291-0
What was done
The authors examined lifetime risk concepts and summarized community-based epidemiological data from the Framingham Study to estimate the remaining lifetime risk of stroke, dementia, and Alzheimer's disease in middle-aged North Americans of European descent.
What was found
For middle-aged individuals, the lifetime risk of stroke was 1 in 5 for women and 1 in 6 for men. Lifetime risk of dementia was equal to that of stroke, and the lifetime risk of Alzheimer's disease was 1 in 5 for women and 1 in 10 for men. The lifetime risk of developing stroke or dementia combined was greater than 1 in 3.
Why it matters
Lifetime risk provides a clear, aggregate measure of population burden that can help communicate long-term risk and guide risk-stratified clinical prevention.
Limits
The reported data are limited to North Americans of European descent and may not generalize to other racial or ethnic groups. Exact sample sizes, age definitions, confidence intervals, and confounding variables were not reported in the abstract.
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