News: Dementia patients twice as likely to develop COVID-19

After adjusting for COVID-19 risk factors, age, sex, and race, people with dementia were twice as likely as other adults to develop COVID-19, according to a report published in Alzheimer’s and Dementia. Among those patients with dementia, Black patients were found to be almost three times as likely as white patients to develop COVID-19.

Of the 15,770 EHRs in the study that showed a diagnosis of COVID-19, 810 of those patients had dementia. Among those with both dementia and COVID-19, the hospitalization risk during the six-month study period was 73% among Black patients and 54% among white patients. The mortality risk for people with both dementia and COVID-19 was 21%, while those who only had a COVID-19 diagnosis was only 5%.

Authors of the study note that these findings highlight the need to protect patients with dementia as part of the strategy to control the COVID-19 pandemic.

Editor’s note: The Alzheimer’s and Dementia published study can be found here. To read more of ACDIS’ COVID-19 coverage, click here. To read more about racial disparities and COVID-19 outcomes, read this article from the January/February edition of the CDI Journal.