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TOPLINE:

Cannabis-related emergency department (ED) visits or hospitalizations increased more than 26-fold over a 13-year period among individuals aged 65 years or older and were associated with a significantly higher risk of dementia than visits for all-cause acute care, a new study showed.

METHODOLOGY:

• This population-based, retrospective, matched cohort study included data from 2008 to 2021 for more than 6 million individuals aged 45-105 years in Ontario, Canada. Follow-up continued until 2022.
• Researchers identified more than 16,000 individuals with an incident encounter with acute care for cannabis use (mean age, 55 years; 60% men), including those with ED visits (76%) and hospitalization (24%).
• They compared the diagnosis of incident dementia between patients receiving acute care for cannabis use and three other groups: Matched patients receiving all-cause acute care, the matched general population, and patients receiving acute care for alcohol use.

TAKEAWAY:

• During the study period, annual rates of incident acute care for cannabis use increased more than fivefold in individuals aged 45-64 years (from 10.16 to 50.65 per 100,000) and more than 26-fold in those aged 65 years or older (from 0.65 to 16.99 per 100,000).
• Risk of dementia within 5 years was 1.5-fold higher for the cannabis-related care group than for the all-cause care group and 3.9-fold higher than for the matched general population (absolute rates, 5%, 3.6%, and 1.3%, respectively).
• After adjusting for various factors, including other health conditions, risk of a dementia diagnosis at 5 years remained higher in patients receiving acute care for cannabis use than in those receiving all-cause acute care (adjusted hazard ratio [aHR], 1.23; 95% CI, 1.09-1.39) and the matched general population (aHR, 1.72; 95% CI, 1.38-2.15).
• However, patients receiving cannabis-related acute care had a lower risk of a dementia diagnosis than those receiving alcohol-related acute care (aHR, 0.69; 95% CI, 0.62-0.76).

IN PRACTICE:

“Regular cannabis use might directly increase the risk for dementia through changes in brain structure. It’s also possible that regular cannabis use increases the risk of other established risk factors for dementia, including high blood pressure, head trauma and other injuries, and a higher risk for depression and social isolation,” co-investigator Colleen Webber, PhD, Bruyère Health Research Institute, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, said in a press release.

SOURCE:

The study was led by Daniel T. Myran, MD, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It was published online on April 14 in JAMA Neurology.

LIMITATIONS:

The study did not examine patterns of cannabis use that did not require acute medical attention. Detailed data on the duration, frequency, and type of cannabis use were not available. Additionally, residual confounding and reverse causation were possible.

DISCLOSURES:

The study received support from the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences, Canada, and a Canadian Institutes of Health Research project grant. The authors reported no relevant conflicts of interest.

This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.