Elderly people forced out of their homes and separated from neighbors in the aftermath of a natural disaster may be more prone to dementia than survivors who are able to remain in their dwellings, a new study suggests.
This, at least, is how things unfolded after the 2011 tsunami and earthquake in the Tohoku region, according to the study of 3,556 elderly survivors.
"In the aftermath of disasters, most people focus on mental health issues like post-traumatic stress disorder," said lead study author Hiroyuki Hikichi, a public health researcher at Harvard University in Boston. "But our study suggests that cognitive decline is also an important issue."