AKI hospitalization a risk factor for dementia

Patients who have been hospitalized for acute kidney injury (AKI) are at heightened risk of dementia, as reported in a study.

The study used data from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities study and included adult participants who experienced AKI hospitalization. The risk of incident dementia was then compared to participants with hospitalization for other reasons (primary analysis, mean follow-up 4.3 years) or participants without hospitalized AKI (secondary analysis).

The primary analysis included a propensity score-matched cohort of 1,708 participants with previous AKI hospitalization and those who had been hospitalized for other reasons. In the secondary analysis, researchers applied multivariable Cox proportional hazards regression models to estimate the association between time-varying hospitalized AKI and subsequent onset of dementia.

The propensity-matched cohort had a mean age of 76.1 years, and 53.2 percent of the participants were women. The risk of dementia was higher for participants who had been hospitalized for AKI than for those who had not experienced AKI hospitalization (hazard ratio [HR], 1.25, 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 1.02–1.52; p=0.03). The associations were slightly stronger in the time-varying analysis (HR, 1.69, 95 percent CI, 1.48–1.92; p<0.001).

Other risk factors for dementia included older age, male sex, higher albuminuria levels, diabetes, current smoking status, and the presence of the APOE risk alleles.

The study was limited by its observational nature, with AKI identified through diagnosis codes.