Active seniors should take measures to protect their head, expert says
WebMD News from HealthDay
By Randy Dotinga
HealthDay Reporter
MONDAY, Oct. 27, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- A mild concussion after age 65 might boost your risk of developing dementia, a new study suggests.
Head injuries seem to pose special hazards for seniors compared to those in upper middle age, the researchers said.
"This was surprising and suggests that the older brain may be especially vulnerable to traumatic brain injury, regardless of the traumatic brain injury severity," said study lead author Dr. Raquel Gardner, a clinical research fellow with San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center.
"Or to spin it more positively, the younger brain may be more resilient to mild traumatic brain injury or may take longer to show symptoms of dementia," she added.
Whatever the case, she believes the findings should spur efforts to prevent head injuries among older adults.
"Most doctors and patients understand the importance of preventing falls in order to prevent bodily injuries. This study suggests that fall prevention may not only prevent bodily injury, but may even help prevent dementia," she explained.
It's not clear from the research how brain injuries could lead to dementia, and it doesn't prove that the injury actually caused mental decline. Gardner said she and other researchers launched the study to better understand the seeming link between brain injuries and dementia.
"While many studies have shown that traumatic brain injuries in early life increase the chance of getting dementia, it has been harder to establish whether late-life injuries also increase the chance of getting dementia," she said.
"This is a very important question because the highest rates of traumatic brain injury in this country are in older adults," she added.
In the new study, researchers tracked nearly 52,000 emergency room patients in California from 2005 to 2011. All had suffered traumatic injuries of various types in 2005 or 2006 and were over the age of 55.
While just under 6 percent of those with injuries outside the brain went on to develop dementia, more than 8 percent of those with moderate to mild traumatic brain injuries did so, the investigators found.
At 55 and older, moderate to severe brain injury was associated with increased risk of dementia. But by 65 and older, even mild brain injury increased the dementia risk, the study authors said.
"If a person falls and gets a traumatic brain injury, then they may be 26 percent more likely to get dementia than if they had fallen and broken their arm or leg," Gardner said.
As for people who had more than one traumatic brain injury, the chance of getting dementia more than doubled, she said.
But whether a person with a concussion recovers mentally or develops dementia likely depends on multiple factors ranging from genetics and medical conditions to environmental exposures and specific characteristics of the injury, the authors said.
source : Brain Injuries in Older Age Could Boost Dementia Risk, Study Finds
