A new study, which was published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, found that there were seven new diagnoses of Alzheimer’s disease for every 1,000 seniors who had a documented case of COVID-19 in the past year, compared to five new diagnoses for every 1,000 who did not. However, Heather Snyder, VP of medical and scientific relations at Alzheimer’s Association, played down the study.
“The pandemic presented serious delays for individuals seeking out medical diagnoses like Alzheimer’s, meaning these results could be driven by those who already had Alzheimer’s when they were infected but had not yet sought out a formal diagnosis,” Snyder said.
Dr. Elezer Masliah, director of the Division of Neuroscience at the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute on Aging, said there is evidence that COVID-19 could trigger cognitive impairment. One step in finding out would be to follow people at risk for Alzheimer’s after a COVID-19 infection over the long term, tracking biomarkers found in the blood and doing brain scans.
Imagine how many millions of people over the age of 60 or 65, like myself, have had COVID. Say 5% of them or 10% of them or even 1% of them are at risk,” he said. “Wow. We’re looking at a lot of people in the next few years that might add to the already very large epidemic that we have,” he added.
