Dementia kills nearly 3 times more adults than official US records show, study finds
Affecting about 5.7 million people in the U.S., dementia is caused by abnormal changes in the brain that lead to cognitive decline. It’s an umbrella term for several medical conditions such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, and its prevalence is expected to grow among older adults.
Now, new research shines a light on just how deadly the diseases really are, and how America’s death records fail to capture that.
Researchers at Boston University’s School of Public Health found that dementia may be the underlying cause of nearly three times more deaths in the country than official records show, with underreporting occurring more for men than women and for those without a high school education.
What’s more, records also underestimate dementia’s racial disparities, the researchers said in their study published Monday in the journal JAMA Neurology.
The team learned that 7.1 times more Black adults, 4.1 times more Hispanic adults and 2.3 times more white adults are dying from dementia than government records indicate.
”Understanding what people die of is essential for priority setting and resource allocation,” study lead author Dr. Andrew Stokes, assistant professor of global health at BUSPH, said in a news release. “In the case of dementia, there are numerous challenges to obtaining accurate death counts, including stigma and lack of routine testing for dementia in primary care.”
“Our results indicate that the mortality burden of dementia may be greater than recognized, highlighting the importance of expanding dementia prevention and care,” Stokes said.
The researchers reached their findings after analyzing data collected between 2000 and 2009 from 7,342 older adults included in the Health and Retirement Study, which collects information on people beginning when they move into nursing homes, according to the paper.
The team concluded that 13.6% of deaths were attributable to dementia — “2.7 times more than the 5% death certificates that indicate dementia as an underlying cause of death.”
The racial disparities in these deaths also warrant some investigation, Stokes said.
“Our estimates indicate an urgent need to realign resources to address the disproportionate burden of dementia in Black and Hispanic communities,” he said.
The Alzheimer’s Association says dementia “is often incorrectly referred to as ‘senility’ or ‘senile dementia,’” connecting the diseases to a normal part of aging.
But dementia is triggered by damage to brain cells in different regions of the brain, affecting cells’ ability to communicate with each other, the group says. This often manifests as thinking and behavioral problems associated with poor memory.
This story was originally published August 26, 2020 at 3:04 PM with the headline "Dementia kills nearly 3 times more adults than official US records show, study finds."
