Can improving your vision help protect you from dementia? An evaluation published online on April 25, 2022. JAMA Neurology suggests that it is feasible.
The study's authors used data from the Health and Retirement Study, a long-running project that surveys a sample of Americans over age 50 every two years. They randomly chosen 16,690 people from a 2018 survey, most of whom were 65 or older. They then calculated the population attributable fraction (PAF) for dementia for several common risk aspects. (PAF estimates the proportion of dementia cases that might be avoided by eliminating the danger factor.) Hypertension had the best PAF at 12.4%, followed by obesity (9.2%), depression (9.1%). , and hearing loss (7%). The rating was not surprising, as other studies have shown strong correlations between these conditions and dementia risk. But the evaluation also found that the PAF for vision loss was 1.8%, as was social isolation (1.9%), one other dementia risk factor well supported by science.
The researchers acknowledge that that is an observational study, and under no circumstances signifies that vision loss directly causes dementia. But the findings suggest improving visual acuity, corresponding to wearing glasses or removing cataracts, might help maintain cognitive well-being in older adults.
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