OBJECTIVE To provide information about occurrence and patterns of geriatric morbidity and need for long-term care in patients newly diagnosed with dementia compared to controls without dementia. METHODS An analysis of administrative data was conducted to compare the geriatric outpatient diagnoses and the patterns of care dependency of 1,848 incident dementia patients and 7,385 matched non-dementia controls older than 65 years in the incidence year. RESULTS In most cases the geriatric characteristics show an increased (partly statistically significant) prevalence in the group with dementia as compared to controls. Moreover, dementia patients show a higher number of geriatric comorbidities in contrast to non-dementia controls. Furthermore, the percentage of persons with need for long-term care in the dementia-group is significantly higher than for controls (44.4 vs. 12.9 %). CONCLUSIONS Prevention, early recognition or treatment of attendant symptoms are very important in daily clinical and nursing care in patients with dementia to ameliorate the progression of the disease and to improve the patients' quality of life.