Acute or critical care hospitilization damages cognitive function in older adults

This is something to take to heart if you or someone you know require hospital care for an acute or critical illness. This paper just published in The Journal of the American Medical Association presents a study that set out to...

"To determine whether decline in cognitive function was greater among older individuals who experienced acute care or critical illness hospitalizations relative to those not hospitalized and to determine whether the risk for incident dementia differed by these exposures."

If you have experience with this their conclusion will not surprise you:

"Among a cohort of older adults without dementia at baseline, those who experienced acute care hospitalization and critical illness hospitalization had a greater likelihood of cognitive decline compared with those who had no hospitalization. Noncritical illness hospitalization was significantly associated with the development of dementia."

Note the last sentence: even noncritical illness hospitalization was associated with dementia. You too may have been distressed to see older folks decline in cognitive function following hospitalization due to depletion of critical internal resources that were already suboptimal, oxidative stress, etc.—and nothing was done to help it (even though functional medicine resources are available). Considering the central role of the brain in regulating all bodily functions, this must be kept  in mind when evaluating subsequent health complaints of any kind.