Experts have issued a stark alert over an often overlooked injury that could ‘double’ your risk of developing dementia. Research from Weill Cornell Medicine has consistently found an ‘elevated’ risk among individuals who have suffered ‘intracranial haemorrhages’, also known as ‘brain bleeds’.
These potentially fatal incidents, a type of stroke, can occur in people with uncontrolled high blood pressure or those who have had a fall. However, some may experience symptoms without any apparent cause, in ‘spontaneous’ events that lead to a build-up of blood under the skull or within brain tissue.
“As we see more evidence that dementia can follow haemorrhages, we really need to consider the implication,” Dr Santosh Murthy, senior author and associate professor, said. “For example, assessing the safety of anti-amyloid beta treatments for Alzheimer’s disease in people who have experienced a haemorrhage should become a research priority.”
As part of the US-based study, scientists analysed various Medicare insurance claims from 2008 to 2018, identifying nearly 15,000 individuals who had suffered a brain bleed. Despite many cases being triggered by traumatic injuries, they chose to investigate the risk of dementia among those who had experienced spontaneous intracranial haemorrhages.
Their research alarmingly revealed a ‘two-fold increase in the incidence of first-ever dementia diagnosis within an average of 5.6 years after an intracranial haemorrhage’ among these patients, compared to over two million individuals who did not suffer a brain bleed.
This contributes to a growing body of similar findings, including a 30-year analyses of Denmark’s medical records which found the ‘absolute risk of dementia among stroke survivors was 11.5%’.
This represents ‘a 2.5-fold increase over the general population’, according to reports. The reasons behind these trends are still under investigation, but the Cornell team suggests it could be due to a protein known as ‘amyloid beta’.
They explained: “Haemorrhages may cause dementia directly by triggering the accumulation of a protein called amyloid beta in the brain and its blood vessels, which can disrupt brain function. Or haemorrhage and dementia may be indirectly connected because the same factors—like chronic damage to blood vessels in the brain—increase the risk of both conditions.”
However, it is clear that more research is needed to fully understand this, with scientists emphasising the need to explore how different subtypes of dementia are influenced by haemorrhages. Currently, over 944,000 people in the UK are living with dementia, with Alzheimer’s disease accounting for the majority of cases.
But vascular dementia, Lewy body dementia, and frontotemporal dementia are just a few other forms of the condition that severely impact cognitive abilities.
Potential early stage dementia symptoms
- Confusion and memory loss
- Difficulty concentrating and planning tasks
- Sudden changes in personality or mood
- Trouble finding the right words to say and not being able to understand conversations
NHS guidance adds: “If someone you know is becoming increasingly forgetful, encourage them to see a GP to talk about the early signs of dementia. There are other reasons why someone might be experiencing memory loss.
“However, if dementia is found early, its progress can be slowed down in some cases, so the person may be able to maintain their mental function for longer.”
This story originally appeared on Express.co.uk
