Spouses who live with dementia patients are about 70% more likely to develop dementia themselves than those who do not, according to a new study.
A research team led by Dr. Wu Chi-shin of Taiwan's National Health Research Institutes (NHRI) analyzed health data from about 955,000 married individuals in Taiwan and confirmed that spouses of dementia patients face a significantly higher risk of being diagnosed with the disease, the researchers said on the 21st in a study published in the American Medical Association journal JAMA Network Open.
The study compared 191,021 spouses of patients newly diagnosed with dementia from 1998 to 2022 with 764,084 spouses from the general population matched by birth year, gender, income and area of residence.
The analysis found that women whose spouses had dementia faced a 74% higher risk of developing dementia than the control group (HR 1.74), while men faced a 69% higher risk (HR 1.69). The actual dementia incidence within five years was 6.47% for women, higher than the control group's 3.72%, while for men it was 9.24%, far exceeding the control group's 5.75%. This trend was also confirmed when Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia were analyzed separately.
Stress, Sleep Disorders, Caregiving Burden... "Dementia Is a Family Problem"
The researchers explained that these results are not simply because couples live together. Couples share various risk factors such as dietary and exercise habits and living environment over long periods, and the chronic stress, depression, sleep deprivation and social isolation experienced in the process of caring for a dementia patient likely affected the spouse's cognitive decline.
By age group, the relative increase in risk was greater among younger people, but the absolute risk of actually developing dementia was greater among the elderly. The researchers analyzed that because the elderly already have higher dementia incidence rates, a spouse's dementia is more likely to lead to additional risk for them.
On the other hand, in households with higher income levels or more children, the association between a spouse's dementia and one's own dementia risk appeared somewhat weaker. The researchers estimated that those with financial means find it easier to use professional care services, and that households with more children are more likely to share the caregiving burden among family members, easing stress.
"Prevention Must Be at the Household Level, Not the Individual"... Management Approach Must Change
The researchers stressed that this study also suggests changes in dementia prevention strategies. Since dementia risk is affected not only by an individual's health status but also by family composition, living environment and socioeconomic conditions, prevention and management must also take an approach targeting the entire family rather than the individual patient.
In particular, since spouses of dementia patients tend to put their own health management on the back burner during the caregiving process, the researchers recommended that regular cognitive function tests, sleep and depression management, and social support to reduce the caregiving burden be provided together.
