Adult ADHD Linked to Increased Risk for Dementia

TUESDAY, Oct. 17, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- Adult attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is associated with an increased risk for dementia, according to a study published online Oct. 17 in JAMA Network Open.

Stephen Z. Levine, Ph.D., from the University of Haifa in Israel, and colleagues examined the association between adult ADHD and dementia risk in a prospective national cohort study involving 109,218 members of a nonprofit Israeli health maintenance organization born between 1933 and 1952. In 2003, participants were aged 51 to 70 years.

Overall, 0.7 percent of participants received a diagnosis of adult ADHD during follow-up. The researchers found that dementia occurred in 13.2 and 7.0 percent of participants with and without adult ADHD, respectively. In the primary analysis, the presence of adult ADHD was significantly associated with increased dementia risk compared with the absence of adult ADHD (unadjusted hazard ratio, 3.62; adjusted hazard ratio, 2.77). The conclusions were not attenuated in 12 of the 14 complementary analyses. No clear increase in the risk for dementia was seen in association with adult ADHD among those who received psychostimulant mediation, and there was mild evidence of reverse causation.

"This finding suggests that policy makers, caregivers, patients, and clinicians may wish to monitor ADHD in old age reliably," the authors write.

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