Patients are at high risk of dementia even after years of traumatic brain injuries

In a latest study by the researchers Peter Nordström and Anna Nordström from the Umeå University in Sweden, they found that people even after 30 years or more of a traumatic brain injury (TBI) are at risk of getting diagnosed with dementia. However, the risk of developing dementia decreases with time, but the patients are still likely to get diagnosed with the condition. The findings of the study were published in PLOS Magazine.

The researchers collected data of all the cases of diagnosis of dementia and TBI from the year 1964 to 2012 from Swedish nationwide databases. In a retrospective cohort, the individuals with TBI (n=164,334) were matched with the individuals who didn’t have TBI. Further, in a case-control cohort, individuals who developed dementia (n=136,233) were matched with the participants who didn’t have dementia. Also, in a third cohort, researchers studied 46,970 pairs of siblings with one of them having a TBI.

The findings of the research suggested that the risk of dementia increases by 4- to 6- fold in the first year after TBI. However, the risk gradually decreases after the first year, but patients somehow stay at the risk of dementia even after 30 years of the injury. Also, the risk of dementia is highly prevalent (80%) after 15 years of TBI. Moreover, the risk remains high in people who suffered from multiple or severe TBI in past.