Introduction: Dementia becomes a major public health challenge in both the Czech Republic and worldwide. The most common form of dementia is Alzheimer’s disease (AD).

Objective: We conducted two successive epidemiological projects in 2012-2015 and 2016-2019. Their aim was to study the effect of selected potential genetic, vascular and psychosocial risk factors on the development of AD by comparing their frequencies in AD patients and controls.

Methods: Epidemiological case-control studies were conducted. In total, data from 2106 participants (1096 cases, 1010 controls) were analyzed.

Results: Three times more females than males suffered from AD. The highest proportion of cases were those with primary education, unlike controls. There were statistically significantly more manual workers among cases than among controls. Of selected vascular risk factors, coronary heart disease was found to be statistically significantly more frequent in cases than in controls. The onset of hypertension and diabetes mellitus was earlier in controls than in cases. As for hobbies and interests, there were statistically significant differences in physical activity, reading and solving crosswords between the groups, with these activities being more common in controls.

Conclusion: The prevalence of chronic neurodegenerative diseases, in particular AD, is currently increasing. Given the aging of the population, these conditions may be expected to rise in prevalence. Potential risk of AD needs to be studied, analyzed and confirmed; a detailed knowledge of the risks of AD and early detection of the pathology may therefore be very beneficial for prevention and early treatment of this condition.

简介：痴呆症已成为捷克共和国和全世界的主要公共卫生挑战。痴呆症最常见的形式是阿尔茨海默病 (AD)。

目标：我们在 2012-2015 年和 2016-2019 年连续开展了两个流行病学项目。他们的目的是通过比较 AD 患者和对照组中选定的潜在遗传、血管和社会心理风险因素对 AD 发展的影响。

方法：进行了流行病学病例对照研究。总共分析了 2106 名参与者（1096 名病例，1010 名对照）的数据。

结果：患有 AD 的女性是男性的三倍。与对照组不同的是，受过小学教育的病例比例最高。与对照组相比，病例中的体力劳动者在统计学上显着更多。在选定的血管危险因素中，发现冠心病在病例中的发生率显着高于对照组。对照组中高血压和糖尿病的发病时间早于病例。至于爱好和兴趣，各组之间在体育活动、阅读和填字游戏方面存在统计学显着差异，这些活动在对照组中更为常见。

结论：慢性神经退行性疾病，尤其是 AD 的患病率目前正在增加。鉴于人口老龄化，这些疾病的流行率可能会上升。需要研究、分析和确认 AD 的潜在风险；因此，详细了解 AD 的风险和早期发现病理可能非常有利于预防和早期治疗这种情况。