Are Serious Falls a Marker for Subsequent Diagnosis of Dementia?

Dementia is a risk factor for falls, but are falls a risk factor or marker for dementia? In this retrospective cohort study, U.S. researchers used a Medicare database to identify 2.5 million older adults (mean age, 78) without known dementia who experienced traumatic injuries that required emergency department visits or hospitalizations. Half of these patients were injured due to falls.

In the 1 year after serious injury, patients who experienced falls were more likely to receive diagnoses of dementia disorders than were patients who were injured in other ways (11% vs. 6%). In analyses adjusted for a wide range of sociodemographic and clinical variables, risk for dementia diagnosis in the group with serious falls was 21% higher than in the g…