A new study of more than 6 million patients 65 and older, has found that the risk factor for developing Alzheimer’s disease increases by 50-80% in older adults who caught COVID-19. The study published in Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease found the risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease in older people nearly doubled (0.35% to 0.68%) over a one-year period following infection with COVID. The researchers say it is unclear whether COVID-19 triggers new development of Alzheimer’s disease or accelerates its emergence.
“Since infection with SARS-CoV2 has been associated with central nervous system abnormalities including inflammation, we wanted to test whether, even in the short term, COVID could lead to increased diagnoses,” said Pamela Davis, the Arline H. and Curtis F. Garvin Research Professor at the Case Western Reserve School of Medicine, the study’s co-author.
They then divided this population into two groups: one composed of people who contracted COVID-19 during that period, and another with people who had no documented cases of COVID-19. More than 400,000 people were enrolled in the COVID study group, while 5.8 million were in the non-infected group. With such a large sampling the case study is father compelling.
With so many Americans infected by COVID, there will likely be a large wave of individuals who suffer from Alzheimer’s dementia moving forward. Previous COVID-related research led by these researchers found that people with dementia are twice as likely to contract COVID; those with substance abuse disorder orders are more likely to contract COVID; and that 5% of people who took Paxlovid for treatment of COVID symptoms experienced rebound infections within a month.