Investigating stroke-related vision impairments and time to incident dementia diagnosis.

Pubmed ID: 41175993

Pubmed Central ID: PMC12600057

Journal: Journal of stroke and cerebrovascular diseases : the official journal of National Stroke Association

Publication Date: Dec. 1, 2025

Affiliation: ['Senior Investigator, Stroke, Cognition, and Neuroepidemiology Section at National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, Intramural Research Program, 10 Center Drive, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20814, USA. Electronic address: rebecca.gottesman@nih.gov.']

MeSH Terms: Humans, Male, Female, Aged, Aged, 80 and over, Risk Factors, United States, Middle Aged, Risk Assessment, Prognosis, Incidence, Stroke, Time Factors, Databases, Factual, Vision Disorders, Dementia, Vision, Ocular, Persons with Visual Disabilities

Grants: P30 AG028716, U01 HL096812, U01 HL096917, U01 HL096902, U01 HL096814, U01 HL096899, 75N92022D00004, 75N92022D00003, 75N92022D00002, 75N92022D00005, 75N92022D00001, K01 HD106010, UL1 TR002553

Authors: Windham BG, Palta P, Wruck L, Hreha K, Ashner MC, Peskoe S, Reistetter T, Gottesman R, Whitson HE

Cite As: Hreha K, Ashner MC, Peskoe S, Reistetter T, Palta P, Wruck L, Gottesman R, Windham BG, Whitson HE. Investigating stroke-related vision impairments and time to incident dementia diagnosis. J Stroke Cerebrovasc Dis 2025 Dec;34(12):108480. Epub 2025 Oct 30.

Studies:

Abstract

Vision loss is a risk factor for dementia, but it is unknown whether stroke-related vision impairment is linked to dementia risk in stroke survivors. This secondary analysis aimed to quantify the association between stroke-related vision impairment and time to incident dementia diagnosis, from time of stroke, using the Arthrosclerosis Risk in Communities study dataset. We included participants who sustained a non-fatal probable or definite ischemic, incident stroke captured from hospital surveillance during the study period and excluded those who were diagnosed with incident dementia prior to or less than half a year after the incident stroke. The association between stroke-related vision impairment (binary) and time from incident stroke to dementia diagnosis was analyzed using a Fine-Gray survival model to account for the competing risk of death, adjusting for age at incident stroke, stroke severity, biological sex, education and race-center. Among 787 stroke survivors, 31 % were diagnosed with dementia during the follow-up period and 19.5 % had stroke-related vision impairment. The presence of stroke-related vision impairment was not significantly associated with dementia diagnosis (HR = 1.18; 95 % CI 0.85, 1.63; p = 0.32). While results suggest that stroke-related vision impairment corresponds to a higher cumulative incidence of dementia, the association was not statistically significant.