• Arch. Gen. Psychiatry · Jun 2010

    Posttraumatic stress disorder and risk of dementia among US veterans.

    • Kristine Yaffe, Eric Vittinghoff, Karla Lindquist, Deborah Barnes, Kenneth E Covinsky, Thomas Neylan, Molly Kluse, and Charles Marmar.
    • San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center, San Francisco, CA 94121, USA. kristine.yaffe@ucsf.edu
    • Arch. Gen. Psychiatry. 2010 Jun 1; 67 (6): 608-13.

    ContextPosttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is highly prevalent among US veterans because of combat and may impair cognition.ObjectiveTo determine whether PTSD is associated with the risk of developing dementia among older US veterans receiving treatment in the Department of Veterans Affairs medical centers.DesignA stratified, retrospective cohort study conducted using the Department of Veterans Affairs National Patient Care Database.SettingDepartment of Veterans Affairs medical centers in the United States.ParticipantsA total of 181 093 veterans 55 years or older without dementia from fiscal years 1997 through 2000 (53 155 veterans with and 127 938 veterans without PTSD).Main Outcome MeasuresDuring the follow-up period between October 1, 2000, and December 31, 2007, 31 107 (17.2%) veterans were ascertained to have newly diagnosed dementia according to International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification codes.ResultsThe mean baseline age of the veterans was 68.8 years, and 174 806 (96.5%) were men. Veterans with PTSD had a 7-year cumulative incident dementia rate of 10.6%, whereas those without had a rate of 6.6% (P < .001). With age as the time scale, Cox proportional hazards models indicated that patients with PTSD were more than twice as likely to develop incident dementia compared with those without PTSD (hazard ratio, 2.31; 95% confidence interval, 2.24-2.39). After multivariable adjustment, patients with PTSD were still more likely to develop dementia (hazard ratio, 1.77; 95% confidence interval, 1.70-1.85). Results were similar when we excluded those with a history of head injury, substance abuse, or clinical depression.ConclusionsIn a predominantly male veteran cohort, those diagnosed as having PTSD were at a nearly 2-fold-higher risk of developing dementia compared with those without PTSD. Mechanisms linking these important disorders need to be identified with the hope of finding ways to reduce the increased risk of dementia associated with PTSD.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…