Dementia risk and autism

 I'm back...

Hello again readers. I've decided to start up the old Questioning Answers blog albeit in a slightly different 'bite-sized' format. Gone (mostly) are the long-winded, get a coffee and yawn a lot blogposts in favour of something a bit more compact.

Here's the first of potentially more posts...

Prevalence of Dementia Among US Adults With Autism Spectrum Disorder

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2828643

"Linked Medicaid and Medicare records suggest a markedly elevated prevalence of identified dementia diagnoses in individuals with an ASD diagnosis." N=100K people/records studied. 

'Markedly elevated' means that around 30-35% of people with autism above the age of 64 were in receipt of a dementia diagnosis in this large cohort. This study also looked at those with autism and those with autism + learning disability and determined that the risk was even higher for those with accompanying cardiovascular issues and/or "depression or other psychiatric conditions."

For reference, here in the UK, the estimated prevalence of dementia in the general population above the age of 65 is around 7-8% (likely an underestimate but nothing like the prevalence noted in that study).

This is scary as hell. And we really need to know why there's the excess risk linked to an autism diagnosis and what science can do to reduce that risk. It also means that 'social care' needs to prepare for a tidal wave of such diseases if the autism prevalence estimates are anywhere near accurate...