Risk of Dementia in Individuals With Emergency Department Visits or Hospitalizations Due to Cannabis

Abstract

Importance: Cannabis use is associated with short-term memory impairment and long-term changes in brain structure; however, little is known about whether disordered cannabis use is associated with an increased risk of a dementia diagnosis.

Objective: To investigate the association between emergency department visits or hospitalizations (acute care encounters) due to cannabis and future dementia diagnosis.

Design, setting, and participants: Population-based, retrospective, matched cohort study using health administrative data from Ontario, Canada, between 2008 and 2021 (with follow-up until 2022) including all individuals aged 45 to 105 years living in Ontario who were eligible and did not have a diagnosis of dementia at cohort entry (2 620 083 individuals excluded).

Exposure: Individuals with incident acute care due to cannabis use, defined using International Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, Tenth Revision coding.

Main outcomes and measures: We used cause-specific adjusted hazard models to compare new diagnoses of dementia (from a validated algorithm) between individuals with acute care due to cannabis use with (1) individuals with all-cause acute care (excluding cannabis), (2) the general population, and (3) individuals with acute care due to alcohol use.

Results: The study included 6 086 794 individuals, of whom 16 275 (0.3%) had incident acute care due to cannabis use (mean age, 55.2 [SD, 8.3] years; 60.3% male). Annual rates of incident acute care due to cannabis use increased 5.0-fold in individuals aged 45 to 64 years (from 10.16 to 50.65 per 100 000) and 26.7-fold in individuals aged 65 years or older (from 0.65 to 16.99 per 100 000) between 2008 and 2021. Individuals with incident acute care due to cannabis use were at a 1.5-fold and 3.9-fold increased risk of dementia diagnosis within 5 years relative to individuals with all-cause acute care and the general population of the same age and sex, respectively (absolute rates of dementia diagnosis: 5.0% for cannabis-related acute care, 3.6% for all-cause acute care, and 1.3% in the general population). After adjustment for sociodemographics and chronic health conditions, individuals with acute care due to cannabis use remained at elevated risk relative to those with all-cause acute care (adjusted hazard ratio [aHR], 1.23; 95% CI, 1.09-1.39) and the general population (aHR, 1.72; 95% CI, 1.38-2.15). Individuals with acute care due to cannabis use were at lower risk than those with acute care due to alcohol use (aHR, 0.69; 95% CI, 0.62-0.76).

Conclusions and relevance: Individuals with cannabis use severe enough to require hospital-based care were at increased risk of a new dementia diagnosis compared with those with all-cause hospital-based care or the general population. These findings have important implications considering increasing cannabis use among older adults.