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Link Established Between Adult ADHD and Elevated Dementia Risk
Adult attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) was associated with an increased risk of dementia, according to cohort study results published in JAMA Network Open.
“The present study results showed that an adult ADHD diagnosis was associated with a 2.77-fold increased risk of incident dementia. Complementary analyses generally supported this association,” noted lead author Stephen Z. Levine, PhD, and co-authors. “Caregivers, patients, and clinicians may wish to monitor reliably for ADHD in old age.”
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Participants included 109,218 members of a nonprofit health maintenance organization born between 1933 and 1952 (aged 51 to 70 years) who, as of 2003, did not have an ADHD or dementia diagnosis. Participants were followed up to February 28, 2020. Statistical analysis was conducted from December 2022 to August 2023. Researchers used Cox regression models to quantify the association between ADHD and the dementia risk with hazard ratios (HRs).
“Adult ADHD was a time-varying covariate, classified as present from the age of the first diagnosis…otherwise, absent,” authors noted.
During follow-up, 730 participants (0.7%) were diagnosed with adult ADHD and 7726 (7.1%) received a dementia diagnosis. Dementia occurred in 13.2% of the participants with ADHD and 7.0% without ADHD. The presence of ADHD was significantly associated with increased dementia risk (unadjusted HR, 3.62 [95% CI, 2.92-4.49; P < .001]; adjusted HR, 2.77 [95% CI, 2.11-3.63; P < .001]) compared with the absence of ADHD. No increase was found in dementia risk among those with ADHD who received psychostimulant medication and evidence of reverse causation was mild.
“Future research is necessary, including the assessment of adult ADHD symptom severity, to examine the role of psychostimulant medication in old age,” authors concluded.
