Even mild concussion now linked to dementia

HEAD injuries including mild concussion significantly raise the risk of developing dementia, a major study has found.

Brain injuries – typically caused by a fall, car accident or assault – increase the chances of Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia by 24 per cent.

The severity of the injury and the younger a person is further increase the risk of a dementia diagnosis in later life, as does the more knocks someone has, suggesting that some athletes, such as boxers, could be at particular risk.

But even those who had suffered only one mild concussion had a 17 per cent higher risk of developing the condition.

However, the US and Danish

‘Adds weight to previous evidence’

researchers, writing in the journal The Lancet Psychiatry, stressed that although the relative risk of dementia rises after a traumatic brain injury, ‘the absolute risk increase is low’.

The scientists tracked almost three million people in Denmark over 36 years between 1977 and 2013.

They found more people with dementia (5.3 per cent) than without the disease (4.7 per cent) had a history of traumatic brain injury.

Dr Carol Routledge, director of research at Alzheimer’s Research UK, said: ‘This well conducted study adds significant weight to previous evidence of a link between head injury and an increased risk of dementia.’