Background: Controversial research has indicated potential neuroprotective qualities\nof lithium in the prevention of dementia, but it did not lead to a definite conclusion.\nAim: We seek to examine whether lithium has a protective effect in an elderly\npopulation suffering from bipolar disorder. Patients and Methods: Of a retrospective\ncohort including 433 patient files that met inclusion criteria (age over 65 years\nand bipolar disease coded by ICD), 147 files contained enough relevant data. The patientsââ?¬â?¢\nfiles were divided into lithium users (LU) for those who used lithium for at\nleast a minimum of 3 months and non-users (LNU) for those who did not use lithium\nat all or used it for a period of less than 3 months. We searched for dementia\nincidence in these two groups. Results: 433 files were collected initially through a\ncomputerized search using ICD10 code for bipolar affective disorder. One hundred\ntwenty three files were excluded due to age (younger than 65 years), 7 were excluded\ndue to neurological background, and 49 were excluded due to either a secondary or a\nnot strictly bipolar psychiatric diagnosis. One hundred and seven were excluded due\nto insufficient/uncertain data. The remainders of 147 files were included in the final\nanalysis. Twenty five of the 147 bipolar patients were diagnosed with dementia (17%).\nAmongst the 92 LNU patients, 16 developed dementia (17.4%) and of the 55 LU patients,\n9 developed dementia (16.4%); Pearsonââ?¬â?¢s Ãâ?¡ 2(1) = 0.026, p < 0.05. Our analysis\nshowed no significant difference between the two groups. Conclusions: No cognitive\nprotective qualities of lithium treatment in elderly bipolar patients were demonstrated\nby our study.
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