Individuals diagnosed with young-onset dementia (YOD) have an alarmingly high risk of serious injury because of motor vehicle accidents — both as pedestrians and drivers.
Results from a longitudinal, registry-based cohort study showed that compared with the general population, YOD patients had an almost twofold increased risk of MVA-related injury.
Dr Jiun-Yi Wang
"These findings suggest that transport safety should be reinforced for patients with young-onset dementia," study investigator Jiun-Yi Wang, PhD, professor and chair, Department of Healthcare Administration, Asia University, Taiwan, and adjunct professor, Department of Global Community Health and Behavioral Sciences, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana, told Medscape Medical News.
The findings were published online May 5 in JAMA Network Open.
High Rate of Internal, Intracranial Injury
Much of the previous research exploring the association between dementia and risk for motor vehicle crash injury (MVCI) had limitations that potentially led to biased risk estimates, the investigators note.
Many of these studies used self-reported traffic crashes; had relatively small sample sizes and short follow-up periods; did not distinguish whether the crash party was a driver, pedestrian, or passenger; did not distinguish whether the vehicle types were cars, motorbikes, or bicycles; or did not consider length of time since a dementia diagnosis, Wang said
In addition, most previous research focused exclusively on older dementia patients, he added.
