A new study has found that older adults with atrial cardiopathy may be at increased risk of developing dementia.
The research, published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, studied 5,078 older adults living in four US communities: Washington County in Maryland, Forsyth County in North Carolina, northwestern suburbs of Minneapolis and Jackson in Missisipi.
The participants did not have dementia when the study began. The researchers sought to determine if there was a difference in the number of people who developed dementia by comparing a group that had markers of left atrial dysfunction versus a group who did not.
Study author Michelle Johansen said: “We found that patients who had atrial cardiopathy as we defined in our study had a higher hazard, or rate, of dementia over time versus those who did not have atrial cardiopathy.”
Atrial cardiopathy is a heart condition that causes an irregular and often abnormally fast heart rate.
A normal heart rate should be regular and between 60 and 100 beats a minute when resting.
In atrial fibrillation, the heart rate is irregular and can sometimes be very fast. In some cases, it can be considerably higher than 100 beats a minute.
This can cause problems including dizziness, shortness of breath and tiredness.
Sometimes atrial fibrillation does not cause any symptoms and a person who has it is completely unaware that their heart rate is irregular.
In atrial fibrillation, the heart’s upper chambers contract randomly and sometimes so fast that the heart muscle cannot relax properly between contractions. This reduces the heart’s efficiency and performance.
The cause is not fully understood, but it tends to affect certain groups of people, such as older people and people living with long-term conditions such as heart disease, high blood pressure or obesity.
Johansen concluded: “Stroke and atrial fibrillation are two medical conditions tied to atrial cardiopathy. We looked to see if we could find any association between the left atrium and dementia that was mediated by, or as a result of, the development of either one of these conditions.”