Now, keep up to date
with daily feeds of newly posted stories
about America's Seniors...click on the box
to the left
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder associated
with Dementia among Older Veterans
Newswise — Older veterans with
post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) appear
more likely to develop dementia over a
seven-year period than those without PTSD,
according to a report in the June issue of
Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the
JAMA/Archives journals.
PTSD is a common psychiatric symptom and
often occurs in veterans returning from
combat, according to background information
in the article. As many as 17 percent of
veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan
are estimated to have PTSD, and 10 percent
to 15 percent of Vietnam veterans had PTSD
symptoms 15 years or longer after their
return.
Previous studies have associated PTSD with a
wide variety of medical conditions in
younger and middle-aged veterans, along with
declines in cognitive (thinking, learning
and memory) performance.
Kristine Yaffe, M.D., of the University of
California, San Francisco, and San Francisco
Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and
colleagues studied 181,093 veterans 55 years
and older (average age 68.8, 96.5 percent
men) between 1997 and 2000. Of these, 53,155
had PTSD and 127,938 did not.
Over seven years of follow-up, from 2000 to
2007, 31,107 (17.2 percent) of the veterans
developed dementia. Veterans with PTSD had a
10.6 percent risk of developing dementia,
whereas the risk among those without
dementia was 6.6 percent.
Those with PTSD were still more likely to
develop dementia when the analyses were
adjusted for important differences,
including demographic variables and other
medical and psychiatric illnesses.
“There are several reasons why patients with
PTSD may have an increased risk of
developing dementia,” the authors write.
PTSD may contribute to the cause of
dementia, or chronic stress may link the two
conditions. Stress may damage the
hippocampus, a brain area critical for
memory and learning, or cause alterations in
neurotransmitter and hormone levels that
could precipitate dementia.
“The finding that PTSD is associated with a
near doubling of the risk of dementia has
important public health, policy and
biological implications,” the authors
conclude. “It is important that those with
PTSD are treated, and further investigation
is needed to see whether successful
treatment of PTSD may reduce the risk of
adverse health outcomes, including dementia.
In addition, it is critical to follow up
patients with PTSD, especially if they are
of an advanced age, to screen for cognitive
impairment. Finally, mechanisms linking PTSD
and dementia must be identified in hope of
finding ways to improve
Editor’s Note: This study was funded by a
U.S. Department of Defense grant. Dr. Yaffe
was supported in part by the National
Institute on Aging and an anonymous
foundation. Please see the article for
additional information, including other
authors, author contributions and
affiliations, financial disclosures, funding
and support, etc.
... ..
...
...
