The exploration of public beliefs and knowledge about dementia and its prevention allows us to visualize the misconceptions about brain and cognitive health, the knowledge of risk factors for dementia and the actions implemented by the general population to prevent cognitive decline. In this topic, some factors play an important role, for example, diet, cholesterol level, hypertension, obesity, sleep, physical and cognitive inactivity. The determination of protective or risk factors, as well as the establishment of a baseline of public knowledge, allows the design of interventions aimed at enhancing knowledge about dementia prevention.
Objectives: This review pursued two fundamental objectives, to explore the available evidence about the protective and risk factors that have an impact on dementia and to systematize the level of knowledge existing in the general public about dementia and its prevention.
Method: A review was carried out on the subject in digital databases. For the search, the following keywords were used (in English and Spanish): “public knowledge about dementia”, “protective factors”, “risk factors”, “dementia prevention”. The consultations were made in Scopus, EBSCO Health, PubMed (search engine), SciELO and PsycINFO, with an emphasis on original articles and systematic reviews.
Conclusions: Recent research results, about factors as like the diet, cholesterol, hypertension, obesity, depression, physical and cognitive inactivity, smoking, hold the life-style importance in dementia prevention. The investigations suggest that the knowledge of the dementia prevention potential of is still poor, which justify the need of programs to increase the public knowledge on dementia and what to make to prevent it.