Incidence of head injury and traumatic brain injury among people with Alzheimer's disease.

BACKGROUND

Injuries caused by falling are a major health concern among older population. For older people, falls are the leading cause of head injuries; especially, persons with cognitive disorders have an increased risk of falling.

OBJECTIVE

To compare the incidence of head injury and traumatic brain injury (TBI) among persons with Alzheimer's disease (AD) with persons without AD.

METHODS

This register-based study was conducted on a nationwide cohort, which includes all community-dwelling persons diagnosed with AD in Finland in 2005-2011. Persons with previous head injuries were excluded, leaving 67 172 persons with AD. For each person with AD, a matching person without AD and previous head injury were identified with respect to age, sex and university hospital district. The Cox proportional hazard model and competing risk analyses were used to estimate HR for head injury and TBI.

RESULTS

Persons with AD had 1.34-fold (95% CI 1.29 to 1.40) risk of head injuries and 1.49-fold (95% CI 1.40 to 1.59) risk of TBIs after accounting for competing risks of death and full adjustment by socioeconomic status, drug use and comorbidities.

CONCLUSION

Persons with AD are more likely to have a head injury or TBI incident than persons without AD.