Patients with a diagnosis of dementia have approximately three times the rate of diagnosis of urinary incontinence, and more than four times the rate of fecal incontinence, compared with those without a diagnosis of dementia, according to a study in this week’s issue of PLOS Medicine by Robert Grant (Kingston University and St. George’s, University of London) and colleagues. Furthermore, patients with dementia and incontinence were more likely to receive incontinence medications and indwelling catheters than those with incontinence but without dementia, the authors state.

The authors analyzed records of patients in The Health Improvement Network (THIN) database, a database of nearly 500 UK primary care practices. They extracted data on 54,816 people aged 60 years with a diagnosis of dementia and an age-gender stratified sample of 205,795 people without a diagnosis of dementia from 2001 to 2010. The THIN database does not distinguish nursing home (care home) residents from those who live in their own homes.