Multimorbidity in general practice : adverse health effects and innovative research strategies

This dissertation shows that multimorbidity, i.e. having two or more diseases at the same time, is rather common in the general practice. Multimorbidity turns out to be related to negative health effects such as a permanent decline in physical health, memory complaints and cognitive functioning. The dissertation also shows that multimorbidity should not be confused with other old age constructs such as ‘frailty’ and ‘disability’; each construct has its own risk of admission to a nursing home and death. This dissertation also shows that innovative analysis methods can identify new and potentially relevant medical patterns in large quantities of medical data.