People With Congenital Heart Disease Face Early Dementia Risk

A study published in Circulation found children in Denmark with congenital heart disease (CHD) surviving to adulthood are more likely to develop early dementia than the general population, reports MedPage Today . In general, the Danish congenital heart disease population had a 61 percent elevated risk of dementia versus 95 percent among those lacking congenital defects. They were especially prone to developing early-onset dementia, but more likely to develop dementia later on in life as well. The study outcomes remained the same when excluding all individuals diagnosed with mild cognitive impairments and amnestic syndromes, and reclassification of unspecified dementias such as Alzheimer's disease did not change the results either. "Our findings extend the knowledge of long-term neurologic impairment and mental health functional morbidities in the CHD population," they researchers note. "While previous studies have reported elevated risks of adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes among CHD individuals, including increased occurrence of depression, autism, and epilepsy compared to the general population, our study examined an older adult population to determine the later-life consequences of this neurologic outcome. While the underlying pathophysiologic mechanisms are not completely understood, the potential etiologic factors appear multifactorial and consistent with previous finding within the neurodevelopmental scientific literature."