Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a topic that is gaining a lot of attention in the news media as well as the medical literature. Most often this is in the context of athletes or soldiers sustaining concussions but TBI can be the result of any type of head injury. The question has been raised whether TBI results in increased risk of developing dementia. This is a tough question to answer because studies must be long enough to detect the endpoint, i.e. development of dementia, and must have accurate recall of participants’ history of TBI. As such, this is a major limitation of previous retrospective studies. In this video, Dr. Tipton discusses these points and summarizes the findings of a Danish study from 2018 that looked at over 2.7 million people. Watch the video to hear about the results.
Studies mentioned: Fann JR et al. Long-term risk of dementia among people with traumatic brain injury in Denmark: a population-based observational cohort study. Lancet Psychiatry 2018;5:424-431.