Older Adults More Likely to Develop Dementia After a Concussion, Canadian Study Finds

A Canadian study published in JAMA Neurology found older adults are significantly more likely to develop dementia after a concussion, but this risk could be reduced with a certain family of cholesterol inhibitors, reports the Toronto Globe and Mail . One in six Ontario residents 65 and older were diagnosed with dementia within an average four years after suffering a concussion, which was twice the rate for the rest of the provincial populace. However, those who took statins cut the risk of dementia by about 10 percent to 15 percent compared to those who did not. Individuals who were prescribed a statin within 90 days of a concussion had about a 13 percent reduced risk of dementia. Donald Redelmeier of ICES (formerly the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences) says persons who were on statins were taking the drugs incidentally for non-concussion-related reasons, with most taking them before and after injury. Experimental models suggest statins can mitigate injury-related brain swelling, inflammation, and faulty microcirculation, which may explain why the drugs appear to offer some protection against dementia following concussion.