Dementia patients are at an increased risk of contracting the new coronavirus, suggests the findings of a large new study that also determined that those suffering from cognitive condition are more likely to be hospitalized due to a COVID-19 infection.
For the study published Tuesday in the Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association, researchers at Case Western University analyzed data from electronic health records of nearly 62 million adult Americans between February and August 2020. Of the 15,770 patients with COVID-19, 810 of them also had dementia, according to the study.
“This study highlights the need to protect patients with dementia, especially blacks, as part of the pandemic control strategy,” concluded the researchers. (iStock)
After adjusting for several factors, such as age, sex and race, the researchers determined that those who suffer from dementia are twice as likely to contract the new disease as those who do not. Dementia patients were also more likely to be hospitalized due to COVID-19, and were considered more likely to die because of this, the researchers concluded.
More specifically, the risk of hospitalization for patients with dementia was about 59%, more than double when compared to those who do not suffer from the disease. Meanwhile, the overall risk of mortality in the study was about 5%, but jumped to 20% for patients with dementia.
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The study also found that black patients with dementia were even more likely to be hospitalized or die of COVID-19 when compared to white patients with dementia. About 73% of black patients with dementia were hospitalized for COVID-19 during the study period, compared with 53% of white patients.
In addition, during the study period, about 23% of black patients with dementia died, while 19% of white patients with dementia died.
“This study highlights the need to protect patients with dementia, especially blacks, as part of the pandemic control strategy,” concluded the researchers.
“Comparing the chances of COVID-19 in dementia patients before and after adjusting COVID-19 risk factors, it is clear that these factors, many of which are also risk factors for dementia (eg, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes) 2, obesity, asthma, chronic kidney disease) in fact contributed to the high risk of COVID-19 in patients with dementia “, they continued.
“While a greater proportion of patients with dementia may reside in nursing homes and chronic care facilities, and close encounters predispose to virus transmission, the impact of dementia on the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection persists after care control. in nursing homes, “they wrote. “Yet,” they noted, “even after adjusting for these risk factors, patients with dementia were still at high risk for COVID-19 compared to patients without dementia.”
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“The reasons for this high risk of viral infection observed are as follows: first, certain residual and unmeasured confounding factors (eg, socioeconomic determinants, behavioral factors, lifestyle) may have contributed to the increased risk of COVID-19 in patients with dementia. For example, patients with dementia may be particularly prone to SARS-CoV-2 infection because their impaired memory limits their ability to meet recommendations for social distance, wearing a mask or washing their hands, “they said of a possibility.
Overall, more research is needed to understand why patients with dementia are at higher risk for COVID-19 and serious outcomes, the researchers said, noting, however, that their findings “may serve as a baseline risk study. of COVID-19, racial disparity and outcome observations in dementia patients in the United States. “