Dementia risk: Older adults dealing with both frailty and depression face a significantly elevated risk of developing dementia, with the combination of conditions accounting for 17 per cent of overall dementia risk, a new study shows.
The research, published in the journal General Psychiatry, found that while frailty and depression each raise dementia risk independently, people experiencing both conditions are more than three times as likely to develop dementia compared to those in good health.
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Researchers at Zhejiang University School of Medicine in China said routine screening for frailty and depression in older adults is important, as better physical and mental health could lower dementia risk.
Previous studies have mainly examined how physical frailty or depression separately affect dementia risk, the researchers said.
The team analysed data from more than 200,000 people in the United States and the United Kingdom, drawing from sources including the UK Biobank dataset.
Over 13 years, doctors diagnosed 9,088 participants with dementia.
Frail participants tended to be female, have higher body weight, live with multiple chronic conditions and have lower education levels. They were 2.5 times more likely to receive a dementia diagnosis.
Participants with depression had nearly 60 per cent higher odds of being diagnosed with dementia.
People experiencing both physical frailty and depression showed the highest dementia risk compared to those without either condition, the authors wrote.
The interactive effects of physical frailty and depression together contributed 17.1 per cent of dementia risk, showing a significant additive relationship between the two conditions, they said.
The findings point to complicated connections between frailty, depression and cognitive function, the research team said.
Lower frailty levels may partly counteract cognitive decline linked to depression, while less severe depression may help reduce the burden of frailty, the researchers said.
But when both conditions cross a certain threshold, these protective effects may break down, causing a sharp jump in dementia risk, they said.
