Risk of Dementia Increased Among Female Veterans With TBI, PTSD, Depression

A study published in Neurology found the risk of dementia was elevated in female military veterans with traumatic brain injury (TBI), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), or depression, reports Medical Xpress . The research involved 109,140 female veterans 69 years old on average, who received care at a Veterans Health Administration medical center and had at least one follow-up visit. A total of 81,135 women were depression-, TBI-, and PTSD-free, while 20,410 had depression only, 1,363 had PTSD only, 488 had TBI only, and 5,044 had several conditions. Over an average four years of follow-up, 4 percent of the subjects developed dementia. The investigators determined those with PTSD were about 80 percent more likely to develop dementia than those without PTSD, and women with depression were about 70 percent more likely to develop dementia than women who lacked it. Women with TBI were about 50 percent more likely to develop dementia than those who lacked it, while the risk of dementia was doubled for women with more than one of these conditions, versus those who did not have any. "These results highlight the need for increased screening for TBI, PTSD, and depression, particularly among female veterans, as well as the potential role for treatment of these conditions to reduce dementia risk," concluded the University of California, San Francisco's Kristine Yaffe.