People living with neurological or psychiatric conditions may have an increased likelihood of having a second such condition in the future, and their sex influences their risk, according to new research.
The study is Ontario’s largest, both in population size and length of time studied, and was also the first to examine the effect that being a man or woman has on the relationship between conditions. Researchers from the University of Waterloo and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Science conducted the work with funding from the Neurodegenerative Disease Research Initiative (ONDRI).
“Globally, neurological and psychiatric disorders are leading causes of disability and death,” said Colleen Maxwell, a professor at the School of Pharmacy at Waterloo and lead author on the study. “Understanding which disorders or conditions are risk factors for, or early manifestations of, later disorders will help health-care providers and family provide proactive care for individuals living with these conditions.”
Maxwell and the study collaborators used provincial health databases to analyze data from more than five million Ontario residents aged 40 to 85 years. Over the course of 14 years, they examined the associations between pairs of particularly common neurological conditions—such as dementia, Parkinson’s disease, or stroke—and psychiatric disorders like depression and anxiety.