What is it about?
We studied weather people with Alzheimer's disease would have more coexisting medical chronic diseases than their age- and sex-matched older adults without Alzheimer's disease. Furthermore, we investigated which of them were more likely seen in Alzheimer's disease and associated with the occurrence of AD. We found DM, osteoporosis, depression, and cerebrovascular disease were more often seen in AD, and particularly we noted a cluster of osteoporosis/osteoarthritis was associated with AD. The findings suggested that osteoporosis and AD might have shared etiology.
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Why is it important?
It is important because the majority of patients with AD would be at the age of 80 and above, which multiple comorbidities might be a dominant feature, and it is worth to address its commonality regarding health care rather to focus only on amyloid hypothesis. The common associated comorbidities in AD might be taken into account in future clinical trials. Osteoporosis might have shared etiology with AD and worth further investigation.
Perspectives
Medical comorbidity is a common issue for elderly patients and even more so for patients with Alzheimer's disease. The conventional way to think AD as the manifestation of amyloid and tangles would not suffice to explain the complexity of the real patients we care in daily practice. AD or at least the typical Alzheimer type dementia syndrome should be viewed from a broader perspective when we implement intervention and health care.
Raymond Lo
Tzu chi
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Medical Comorbidity in Alzheimer’s Disease: A Nested Case-Control Study, Journal of Alzheimer s Disease, April 2018, IOS Press,
DOI: 10.3233/jad-170786.
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