English Abstract With the ageing of the population, diseases mainly
occurring amongst elderly people will cause a shift of morbidity in the
Dutch society. In this analysis the prevalence of chronic diseases was
subject of study. On the basis of registration data from general
practitioners the prevalence of the two most important chronic diseases per
tractus were compared to each other and extrapolations to the year 2005 were
made. Using a static model, in which the number of patients per number of
inhabitants was held constant, the expected prevalence of the diseases in
2005 was calculated. For diseases with an equal increase of the number of
patients between 1990 and 2005 the distribution of the number of patients
per age-category was compared. Diseases showing the same prevalence profile
were clustered. While the expected growth of the Dutch population between
1990 and 2005 is 8.5%, the expected increase of the prevalence of most of
the diseases with a comparable prevalence profile the highest percentages
were in the age category of 65-79 year, sometimes followed by the age
category of 45-64 year or the category of 80+ years. Diseases showing an
increase in prevalence less than 20% are diseases that relatively affect a
younger population.
