Association of Young-Onset Dementia with Pre-Existing Peripheral Vestibular Disorders

Background: The relationship between young-onset dementia and peripheral vestibular disorders remained largely unknown although this association was observed in the older population.

Objective: This case-control study aims to investigate the association of young-onset dementia with a pre-existing diagnosis of peripheral vestibular disorders using a population-based data from Taiwan's Longitudinal Health Insurance Database 2010.

Methods: This study included 989 patients with young-onset dementia and 2967 propensity-score-matching controls. Differences in baseline characteristic between patients with young-onset dementia and controls were investigated using chi-square tests or t-tests. Multiple logistic regression models were employed to assess the association of young-onset dementia (outcome) with pre-existing peripheral vestibular disorders (predictor).

Results: Compared to patients without young-onset dementia, those affected by this condition exhibited a statistically significantly higher rate of peripheral vestibular disorders (18.3% versus 8.2%, p < 0.001). Furthermore, our analysis found notable between-group disparities in the rates of Meniere's Disease (3.5% versus 2.0%, p= 0.015), benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (2.4% versus 1.1%, p= 0.006), and vestibular neuritis (2.4% versus 1.1%, p= 0.003). Multiple logistic regression analysis showed that the presence of prior peripheral vestibular disorders increased the odds of young-onset dementia [2.603 (95% CI = 2.105∼3.220)] after adjusting for age, sex, monthly income, geographic location, urbanization level, hyperlipidemia, diabetes, coronary heart disease, hearing loss, and hypertension.

Conclusions: The study findings demonstrate a notable association between young-onset dementia and pre-existing peripheral vestibular disorders, suggesting that vestibular malfunction could play a role in the development of young-onset dementia.