Study Links Head Trauma With Dementia

Randy Rozek • June 28, 2014

A new study has linked being a Veteran to an increased chance of getting Alzheimer’s disease, according to an article published in the magazine Neurology.

In the study, researchers looked at the records of 188,764 veterans, age 55 and above, who had been seen at a VA hospital in the early 2000s and at least once since then. None of them had dementia in the beginning and by the end 16% of them who had suffered head trauma had dementia, while only 10% of those who did not have head trauma had dementia. That is a 60% increase in those with head injuries. Veterans that had multiple risk factors such as post traumatic stress disorder, depression, or heart disease were at an even higher risk.

It is not yet clear as to why having a brain injury results in a higher chance of dementia, but it could be that the more damage that the brain suffers in life, the more vulnerable it becomes to dementia. Researchers also were clear that the brain injuries that they studied were traumatic injuries and not the everyday mild concussions that people get.

“There’s no evidence that those kind of milder injuries lead to later problems, said Jeffrey Kutcher, a neurologist, concussion expert and associate professor at the University of Michigan Health System in Ann Arbor.

Dementia is caused by a variety of factors, Kutcher said, including genetics, lifestyle and injuries. As it’s impossible to completely prevent injuries, more effort should be spent on treating and fending off dementia, he said.” (USAToday, 2014).

Just because someone has a brain injury does not automatically mean that they will have dementia. And also people who are at risk of dementia may be able to reduce their risk some by participating in mental, physical and social activities as well as controlling other risk factors such as hypertension and depression.