People with dementia have an almost 2-fold increased risk of contracting coronavirus, but their risk of death due to COVID-19 is no higher than that of people without cognitive impairment, Alzheimer's and Dementia journal reported.

The study authors looked at COVID-19 test results, dementia diagnoses, hospitalizations, and deaths of nearly 180,000 adults at Houston Methodist Hospital between March and December 2020. They found that 6,364 adults tested for COVID-19 had some type of dementia, including mild cognitive impairment, Alzheimer's disease, vascular dementia, and other types of dementia. Compared to adults without dementia, this group was about 30 years older and had more serious medical conditions, including high blood pressure, heart failure, diabetes, and cancer.

20% of adults with dementia hospitalized due to COVID-19 died, compared with 9% among those without dementia. However, when their data were individually compared with those of patients of the same age who had similar underlying diseases, the gap in mortality rates disappeared.

This is in contrast to previous studies that show a higher risk of dying from COVID-19 for people with dementia than for their healthy peers. However, the risk of infection in patients with dementia is approximately doubled.