A retrospective cohort study published in "Alzheimer's Research & Therapy" indicated that restless leg syndrome (RLS) is linked with an elevated risk of incident all-cause dementia in older adults. Utilizing the Korean National Health Insurance Service-Elderly Cohort (aged ≥ 60), Keun You Kim et al. sought to examine the possibility that RLS can be considered a non-cognitive prodromal feature of dementia.

Participants were under 12 years of observation. The 10th revised code of International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) was used to identify people with dementia and RLS. On the basis of age, gender, and index date, researchers examined the risk of vascular dementia, all-cause dementia, Alzheimer's disease, and in 2501 newly diagnosed RLS patients and 9977 matched controls. Utilizing Cox regression hazard regression models, it was determined whether RLS increased the risk of dementia.

It was also investigated how dopamine agonists affected the likelihood of dementia in RLS-affected people. The participants were mostly female (63.4%), with a baseline mean age of 73.4. The RLS group had a greater incidence of all-cause dementia than the control group (10.4% vs. 6.2%), as illustrated in Table 1:

An elevated risk of incident all-cause dementia was shown to be linked to a baseline diagnosis of RLS (adjusted hazard ratio [aHR] 1.46). The risk of vascular dementia development (aHR 1.81) was more than that of Alzheimer's disease (aHR 1.38). Patients with RLS who used dopamine agonists did not experience an increased risk of developing dementia later on (aHR 1.00). Additional prospective studies are needed in the future to further confirm these findings. Awareness of cognitive impairment in people with RLS may have clinical implications for dementia early detection.