COPD patients have a higher risk of developing cognitive impairment: BMJ

A new study published in the BMJ Open Respiratory Research journal showed that patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are more likely to experience cognitive impairment and amnestic mild cognitive impairment (na-MCI) when compared to people without.

Many patients with COPD suffer from cognitive impairment, which is the primary cause of quality of life to varied degrees. However, due to variations in study designs, participant age ranges, inclusion criteria, and evaluation procedures, there were still significant differences in these prevalence percentages. Although earlier research showed a link between COPD and cognitive decline, the findings were still debatable. Thereby, Xia Chen and team present this systematic study to determine if COPD is an indicator for cognitive impairment in and of itself.

This research was a meta-analysis and systematic review. From the beginning until December 1, 2022, the Cochrane Library, PubMed, MEDLINE, Web of Science, Embase, China Knowledge Resource Integrated Database, Chinese Biomedical Database, Wanfang Database, and Weipu Database were searched for data. Studies that documented cognitive impairment in COPD were required to meet the inclusion criteria. Cohort designs that have been published in either Chinese or English were merely included by the researchers. 

A total of 12 studies from 10 papers that included 625,644 individuals were finalized. The results showed that individuals with COPD had a higher probability of cognitive impairment than the ones without the disease at baseline. Age and sex did not substantially alter the connection, according to subgroup analysis, which further supported the idea that COPD is more likely than amnestic MCI to cause non-amnestic mild cognitive impairment (na-MCI).

Overall, this study shows that individuals with COPD have a higher risk of dementia or cognitive impairment, and that this risk seemed to be constant across age and gender groups. The subgroup analysis results showed that among patients with COPD, na-MCI was more common than a-MCI. The need for focused cognitive assessments is further highlighted by this difference, which highlights the varying effects of COPD on different cognitive domains.

Reference:

Chen, X., Yu, Z., Liu, Y., Zhao, Y., Li, S., & Wang, L. (2024). Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease as a risk factor for cognitive impairment: a systematic review and meta-analysis. In BMJ Open Respiratory Research (Vol. 11, Issue 1, p. e001709). BMJ. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjresp-2023-001709