Older veterans with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) are more likely to develop dementia than fellow vets who don’t have PTSD, new research finds. Researchers followed more than 180,000 veterans aged 55 and older for seven years. All were free from dementia at the study’s outset, while about 30 percent had PTSD. Nearly 11 percent of the vets with PTSD developed dementia during follow-up, compared to only about 7 percent of those who didn’t have PTSD. Once the researchers, whose findings are reported in the Archives of General Psychiatry, took into account factors such as other physical or mental health problems, they found that vets with PTSD were still nearly twice as likely to develop dementia. (Reuters, 6/07/10)
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