A new study, controlled for age, has found that dementia patients are at an increased risk of contracting COVID-19 and, when they do, are at higher risk of hospitalization and death than non-dementia COVID-19 patients. The study, published on Feb. 9 in Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association, reviewed health records of 61.9 million senior patients in the United States, of whom 15,770 had contracted COVID-19. Among these patients, 810 had various forms of dementia—including Alzheimer’s disease, post-traumatic dementia, and vascular dementia. The researchers found that patients who suffer from some form of dementia were, overall, twice as likely to contract COVID-19. The study was controlled for age and other factors. The effect was strongest among patients with vascular dementia, who were 3.17 times more likely to fall ill with the disease, followed by presenile dementia (2.62) and Alzheimer’s disease (1.86). In addition, the risk of hospitalization …