Aging
Associations of four types of pollen with dementia related emergency departments in the Midwestern United States 2006-2013 Peter S. Larson* Peter S. Larson Allison L Steiner Robert Melendez Marie S. O’Neill Carina J. Gronlund
Climate change is increasing the length of intensity of seasonal patterns of various species of aeroallergenic pollens.
Pollens of many types have been shown to exacerbate symptoms of allergic rhinitis and asthma, both of which have been associated with
cognitive decline and dementia in older adults. However, the patterns of association between specific pollen exposure and dementia related
events are unknown. This research uses a database of dementia related emergency department visits among Medicare recipients age 65+ (N= 5.1
million visits) in 30 counties each in Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania and a prognostic, model based raster of four types of pollens,
deciduous broadleaf, evergreen, grass and ragweed, to test associations of pollen exposure with dementia related episodes.
We regressed daily ED visit counts by ZIP Code Tabulation Area (ZCTA) on cumulative seasonal pollen concentration counts for
each evergreen, deciduous broadleaf, grass and ragweed pollen class including confounders for precipitation and temperature. We used
Poisson regression models with daily population-at-risk offsets within a distributed-lag-non-linear models and a 21-lag-day exposure history.
We found that 21 day cumulative exposure to >90th percentile of deciduous broadleaf pollen was positively associated with increases in dementia
related ED visits (risk ratio 1.13 95% confidence interval (1.08, 1.18)). Sensitivity to deciduous broadleaf pollens, which appear
in late Winter/early Spring, should be considered as an important risk factor for dementia related episodes.