Awareness level and management plans for tackling common neurological disorders among the Saudi older population: a narrative review

Alshanberi, Asim Muhammed1,*; Ansari, Shakeel Ahmed2,*

1Department of Community Medicine and Pilgrims Health Care, Umm Alqura University, Makkah, Saudi Arabia

2Department of Biochemistry, General Medicine Practice Program, Batterjee Medical College, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

*Correspondence to: Asim Muhammed Alshanberi, MD, amshanberi@uqu.edu.sa; Shakeel Ahmed Ansari, PhD, shakeel.ansari@bmc.edu.sa.

Abstract

Presently, geriatricians characterize neurogeriatrics as a general medical specialty that replaces elderly patients from other medical specialties when functional impairment, such as motor function or cognition, is prevalent and manifests as a reduction in independence and daily living activities. This article incorporates the work carried out by Saudi researchers to evaluate the knowledge and awareness about Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease in their elderly population to provide innovative care concepts for such patients. It also mentions the application of machine learning models that can efficiently predict the occurrence of Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease in the aging Saudi population. A study on caregiver experience reported a moderate to high burden Zarit Burden Interview score of 27, which indicated the demand for needed services to improve elderly patient care. Several other studies also pointed out that a dynamic increase in knowledge within medical technologies and skills and within and across medical specialties requires that geriatric medicine provides the highest level of state-of-the-art care to any elderly patient, independent of the leading disability, and that adequate research strategies be designed to provide evidence-based outcome data. Hence, neurogeriatricians can help in the development of many specialized specialties within the largely organ-oriented medical fields (e.g., oncogeriatrics, urogeriatrics, orthogeriatrics, geriatric psychiatry, etc.) because of their high proficiency in interdisciplinary teamwork.

沙特阿拉伯老年人对常见神经系统疾病的认识水平和管理计划：叙述性综述

摘要

目前，老年病学家将神经老年病学定性为一个普通的医学专科，针对运动功能或认知等功能障碍普遍存在并表现为独立性和日常生活活动能力下降的老年患者。文章介绍了沙特阿拉伯研究人员为评估老年人群中阿尔茨海默病（AD）和帕金森病（PD）的相关知识所开展的工作，以便为此类患者提供创新的护理理念。文章还提到了机器学习模型的应用，该模型可有效预测沙特老龄人口中阿尔茨海默病和帕金森病的发病率。一项关于护理人员经验的研究报告称，Zarit 负担访谈得分 27 分，属于中度至高度负担，这表明需要改善老年患者护理所需的服务。 其他几项研究也指出，医疗技术和技能知识的不断增长以及医学专科内部和跨专科的发展都要求老年医学为任何老年患者提供最高水平的先进护理，而不论其是否导致残疾，并设计适当的研究策略以提供循证结果数据。因此，由于神经老年病学家在跨学科团队合作方面的高超能力，他们可以帮助在主要以器官为导向的医学领域（如肿瘤老年病学、泌尿老年病学、骨科老年病学、老年精神病学等）内发展许多专业专科。