Dementia refers to a series of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's, where a person's memory and other cognitive abilities decline. A recent study may have found a new risk factor that might predispose people to dementia: lung disease. According to the study by researchers from the University of Minnesota's School of Public Health in Minneapolis in collaboration with colleagues from other academic institutions in the United States, people who experience lung disease in midlife may have an increased risk of dementia later on. The study's findings appear in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, a journal of the American Thoracic Society. The research indicates associations between both restrictive and obstructive lung diseases and dementia or cognitive impairment risk.
Doctors use the term restrictive lung diseases when the lungs are unable to expand. Such diseases include idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, in which the lungs present scarring, and sarcoidosis, where some lung tissue becomes abnormally swollen. In obstructive lung diseases, something obstructs the air flow in or out of the lungs. The most common type of obstructive lung disease is chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).