Photo/Illutration A flummoxed dementia patient at the checkout. (Illustration by Noriko Fukui)

Spouses of partners who suffer a stroke, cardiac arrest or heart attack are at greater risk of developing dementia, a study suggests.

A team of researchers that included people from Kyoto University studied the medical records of around 90,000 individuals kept at the Japan Health Insurance Association.

A comparison was made of household heads aged 65 and older between fiscal 2016 and 2021 whose spouse suffered from one of the three cardiovascular illnesses and those whose spouse did not. Household heads were chosen so the two cohorts had similar age, gender and income levels.

The household heads were tracked for up to six years to determine if they developed dementia.

A total of 559 individuals were eventually diagnosed with dementia.

Household heads whose partner suffered from one of the cardiovascular illnesses were 1.32 times more likely to develop dementia than those whose spouse did not have any of those illnesses. Similar trends were found regardless of the age or any pre-existing medical condition of the household head.

Because cardiovascular illnesses often have acute symptoms which often result in after-effects, having a spouse come down with the illness can create a major psychological shock to the partner. That person may also have to care for their partner and if the spouse dies, the change in lifestyle can be a massive blow, making dementia more likely.

Toshiaki Komura, a graduate student at Boston University’s School of Public Health who was a member of the research team, said: “Because treating dementia is difficult, how prevention and early discovery is carried out become very important. Providing medical and other care at the appropriate timing will be called for.”

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