A new Swedish study has, for the first time, shown a link between rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and cognitive decline in dementia patients. The study, published in the scientific journal Neurology, emphasizes the importance of careful monitoring and management to prevent cognitive decline.
Researchers at Karolinska Institutet examined 1,685 dementia patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and 5,055 dementia patients without RA, matched by age, gender, and other conditions. During a median follow-up of three years, dementia patients with RA showed poorer cognitive function and higher mortality risk compared to dementia patients without RA.
"Our results show that RA is associated with poorer cognitive outcomes in dementia patients, especially those with Alzheimer's disease or mixed Alzheimer's dementia. This underscores the importance of identifying inflammatory risk factors to develop strategies to slow or prevent dementia progression," says Minjia Mo , postdoc at the Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society at Karolinska Institutet, and the first author of the paper.
The study was conducted as a cohort study using the Swedish Registry for Cognitive/Dementia Disorders (SveDem) and included dementia patients diagnosed between 2007 and 2018. The primary outcome was cognitive decline, measured by changes in Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) scores, and the secondary outcome was all-cause mortality.
"We plan to continue our research to understand how systemic inflammation in RA contributes to neuroinflammation and cognitive decline. We will study specific inflammatory markers associated with RA and dementia progression and investigate whether anti-inflammatory treatments for RA can slow dementia progression," says Hong Xu , Assistant Professor at the Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society at Karolinska Institutet and the last author of the paper.
The researchers hope that their findings will raise awareness among clinicians about the link between RA and dementia and advocate for a multidisciplinary care strategy to better manage these patients.
The study was funded by the Swedish Research Council, StratNeuro, Center for Innovative Medicine (CIMED), U&L Angeby Foundation, Petrus and Augusta Hedlund Foundation, Åke Wiberg Foundation, and KI Foundation for Rheumatology Research.
Publication
Association of Rheumatoid Arthritis With Progression of Cognitive Impairment and Risk of Mortality in People With Dementia . Minjia Mo, Maria Eriksdotter, Sofia Ajeganova, Sumonto Mitra, Sara Garci-Ptacek, Hong Xu. Neurology, online February 7, 2025, doi: WNL.0000000000213405.
