African Americans And People With Vascular Dementia Are At Greater Risk For COVID-19
New research is shedding light on how dementia can increase people’s risk for developing COVID-19, particularly among two groups: African Americans and people with vascular dementia.
The headline findings of a recent study revealed that dementia patients overall face twice the risk for developing COVID-19 as adults without dementia. But two other results from that study deserve more attention than they have received so far.
One is that African Americans with dementia had three times the risk of developing COVID-19, and when they did, it was more likely to be life-threatening. African Americans with both dementia and COVID-19 had a higher hospitalization rate than white patients with dementia – 73% compared with 54% – and a higher death rate – 23% compared with 19% for whites. In view of ...