Skip to main content
Download PDF
- Main
Late-Onset Alcohol Abuse as a Presenting Symptom of Neurodegenerative Diseases.
Published Web Location
https://doi.org/10.3233/jad-215369Abstract
Background
The association between lifetime alcohol abuse and a higher risk to develop dementia is well known. However, it is unknown whether older adults who begin abusing alcohol late in life have an underlying neurodegenerative disease.Objective
Identify the frequency of lifelong alcohol abuse (L-AA), late-onset alcohol abuse (LO-AA), and alcohol abuse as a first symptom of dementia (AA-FS) in patients with neurodegenerative diseases.Methods
Cross-sectional retrospective study of patients evaluated at an academic referral center with a clinical diagnosis of behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), Alzheimer-type dementia (AD), and semantic variant primary progressive aphasia (svPPA) (n = 1,518). The presence of alcohol abuse was screened with the National Alzheimer's Coordinating Center questionnaire. L-AA was defined as onset < 40 years, LO-AA as onset ≥40 years, and AA-FS was defined when the abuse started within the first three years from symptom onset.Results
The frequency of LO-AA was 2.2% (n = 33/1,518). LO-AA was significantly more frequent in patients with bvFTD than AD (7.5%, n = 13/173 versus 1.3%, n = 16/1,254, CI:1.0;11.4%), but not svPPA (4.4%, n = 4/91, CI: -4.4;10.7%). Similarly, AA-FS was more frequent in bvFTD patients than AD (5.7%, n = 10/173 versus 0.7%, n = 9/1,254, CI:0.5%;9.5%), but not svPPA (2.2%, n = 2/91, CI:-2.4;9.1%).Conclusion
LO-AA can be a presenting symptom of dementia, especially bvFTD. Alcohol abuse onset later in life should prompt a clinical investigation into the possibility of an underlying neurodegenerative process because delay in diagnosis and treatment may increase patient and caregiver burden. The results need to be interpreted with caution due to the limitations of the study.Many UC-authored scholarly publications are freely available on this site because of the UC's open access policies. Let us know how this access is important for you.
Main Content
For improved accessibility of PDF content, download the file to your device.
Enter the password to open this PDF file:
File name:
-
File size:
-
Title:
-
Author:
-
Subject:
-
Keywords:
-
Creation Date:
-
Modification Date:
-
Creator:
-
PDF Producer:
-
PDF Version:
-
Page Count:
-
Page Size:
-
Fast Web View:
-
Preparing document for printing…
0%