Risk of Severe COVID-19 in Alzheimer's Disease

Alzheimer's disease is an incurable and debilitating neurodegenerative condition that result in progressive degeneration and / or death of nerve cells causing problems with movement (called ataxias), or mental functioning (called dementias).

A study conducted in Brazil by researchers at the University of São Paulo (USP) and Butantan Institute in partnership with colleagues at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) published in the journal Alzheimer's & Dementia to investigate the risk of progressing to the severe form of COVID-19 or dying from the disease in Alzheimer's and Parkinson’s patients.

Diseases Related to Old Age
Ageing is referred to the accumulation of changes that brings a person closer to death.

‘Pay special attention to COVID-19 infected Alzheimer's disease and dementia patients.’

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They investigated data on positive diagnoses, hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19 of 12,863 patients over 65, who tested positive or negative for SARS-CoV-2 by stratifying them into three age groups: 66-74 (6,182), 75-79 (4,867), and 80-86 (1,814).

The study discovers that Alzheimer’s disease and dementia increases threefold and six times greater if they are over 80 of risk of dying as a result of infection by COVID-19 as many old people live in care homes where the risks of infection and viral transmission are greater.

A possible explanation for this finding is that chronic inflammatory conditions or defective immune responses due to aging of the immune system (immunosenescence) increases the vulnerability to response to infection by the virus and the altered permeability of the blood-brain barrier, making infection of the central nervous system more likely.

Risk Factors for Alzheimers Disease
Cognitively normal adults exhibiting atrophy of their temporal lobe or damage to blood vessels in the brain are more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease.

These findings are supported by recent research explaining the ability of coronavirus to invade the central nervous system via the olfactory mucosa by detection of the virus in the brainstem raising the possibility of infection of the central nervous system may mediate or aggravate respiratory and cardiovascular problems in COVID-19 patients.

The results of the study raise the special attention to COVID-19 infected Alzheimer's disease and dementia patients.

New Approach to Slow Alzheimer�s Disease Progression Identified
Small molecule called cambinol blocks the transfer of tau aggregates from cell to cell. The study could help lay the groundwork for therapies to treat Alzheimer's.

Source-Medindia

Parkinson's Patients Are More Susceptible to COVID-19
Parkinson's patients are particularly affected by the more severe courses of the COVID-19.This might be due to an increased frequency of risk factors from comorbid diseases and requires extra precautions to reduce the severity of COVID-19.