ArticleAlzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association2025
Marital status and risk of dementia over 18 years: Surprising findings from the National Alzheimer's Coordinating Center.
Article in Alzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Life satisfaction and risk of dementia in older adults: findings from 15 European countries and meta-analysis.Age and ageing · 2025Pooled it
- Surgery Is Not Associated With Early Presentation of Alzheimer's Disease and Mild Cognitive Impairment or Increased Risk for Both.CNS neuroscience & therapeutics · 2026Article
- Social determinants of health, behavioral factors, and incident dementia: a prospective cohort study.Alzheimer's research & therapy · 2026Article
- The relationships between clinical nurse leadership and emotional labor, psychological detachment, and perceived organizational support: a cross-sectional study.BMC nursing · 2026Article
- Lifestyle medicine in Parkinson's disease.Journal of neural transmission (Vienna, Austria : 1996) · 2026Review
- Childhood socioeconomic status and episodic memory in later life: the moderating roles of education and social class in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (2002-2024).BMJ public health · 2026Article
- An interpretable machine learning screening model for MoCA-defined possible mild cognitive impairment in rural Xinjiang: a preliminary framework for resource-limited primary care.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Living alone and risk of dementia, cognitive decline, and institutionalization in the MEMENTO cohort.Frontiers in aging · 2026Article
- Regional disparities of antidementia drug treatment in Germany: what can we learn for the new generation of Alzheimer's therapies.Alzheimer's research & therapy · 2025Article
- Childhood adversity, current adversity and cognitive frailty among older adults in rural China: does social support play a role?European journal of psychotraumatology · 2025Article
- Assessment of Dementia Risk and Health-Related Quality of Life in Patients Hospitalised in Geriatric Wards.Journal of clinical medicine · 2025Article
- Hepatic function is associated with cognitive function in patients with stable schizophrenia.BMC psychiatry · 2025Article
- Alteration of glucose neurometabolism and brain morphology in mild behavioral impairment: a neuroimaging study on cognitively healthy individuals.Alzheimer's & dementia (Amsterdam, Netherlands)Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
introductionMarital status is a potential risk/protective factor for adverse health outcomes. This study tested whether marital status was associated with dementia risk in older adults.
methodsParticipants (N = 24,107; Mean
resultsCompared to married participants, widowed (hazard ratio [HR] = 0.73, 95% confidence interval [95% CI] = 0.67-0.79), divorced (HR = 0.66, 95% CI = 0.59-0.73), and never-married participants (HR = 0.60, 95% CI = 0.52-0.71) were at lower dementia risk, including for Alzheimer's disease and Lewy body dementia. The associations for divorced and never married remained significant accounting for demographic, behavioral, clinical, genetic, referral source, participation, and diagnostic factors. The associations were slightly stronger among professional referrals, males, and relatively younger participants. DISCUSSION: Unmarried individuals may have a lower risk of dementia compared to married adults. The findings could indicate delayed diagnoses among unmarried individuals or challenge the assumption that marriage protects against dementia. HIGHLIGHTS: Widowed, divorced, and never-married older adults had a lower dementia risk, compared to their married counterparts. Unmarried older adults were also at a lower risk of Alzheimer's disease and Lewy body dementia, with a pattern of mixed findings for frontotemporal lobar degeneration, and no associations with risk of vascular dementia or mild cognitive impairment. All unmarried groups were at a lower risk of progression from mild cognitive impairment to dementia. There was some evidence of moderation by age, sex, and referral source. However, stratified analyses showed small differences between groups, and most interactions were not significant, suggesting that the role of marital status in dementia tends to be similar across individuals at different levels of dementia risk due to education, depression, and genetic vulnerability.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.