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The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has profoundly impacted vulnerable groups, such as patients with dementia. We examined changes in mortality and loss to follow-up in patients with dementia using data from the Korean National Health Insurance Service research database. Patients with dementia who visited a medical institution with a recorded dementia-related diagnostic code, including Alzheimer's disease, and who received anti-dementia medication between February 2018 and January 2020 were included in this study. We divided patients with dementia receiving anti-dementia medications into two cohorts: those newly diagnosed with dementia between February 2018 and January 2019 (n = 62,631) and those diagnosed between February 2019 and January 2020 (n = 54,494). Then, we conducted a one-year follow-up of their records, tracking the cohort diagnosed between February 2018 and January 2019 from February 2019 to January 2020, as well as the cohort diagnosed between February 2019 and January 2020 from February 2020 to January 2021. There was a significant increase in follow-up loss among patients newly diagnosed with dementia during the COVID-19 outbreak, from 42.04% in 2019 to 45.89% in 2020. Female sex, younger age, fewer comorbidities, diagnosis of dementia at the Department of Neurology or Psychiatry, and higher income were associated with decreased follow-up loss and mortality. This study highlights the importance of paying extra attention to patients with dementia receiving anti-dementia medications, particularly during pandemics, given their increased risk of loss to follow-up. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A shorter leukocyte telomere length (LTL) is reported to be associated with age-related diseases, including osteoporosis. Many studies have tried identifying the association between LTL and osteoporosis, although it remains controversial. This study aimed to determine whether osteoporosis is independently associated with LTL shortening in a prospective longitudinal cohort. The KBASE study is an independent multicenter prospective cohort in South Korea, which began in 2014. We compared the LTL values for each participant at baseline and over a 2-year follow-up period. Boxplots were used to demonstrate the differences in the change in LTL over a 2-year follow-up according to osteoporosis. Multivariable linear regression was conducted to identify whether osteoporosis is independently associated with the rate of telomere shortening. A total of 233 subjects (from 55 to 88 years) from the KBASE cohort were finally enrolled in the study. We observed that the LTL decreased by approximately 1.2 kbp over 2 years. While the LTL decreased as age increased, the rate of LTL shortening did not increase with age. Multivariable linear regression analysis indicated that only osteoporosis was independently associated with rapid LTL shortening over 2 years (B, -8.08; p = 0.038). We sought to identify an association between osteoporosis and LTL shortening in an independent prospective cohort. We found that participants with osteoporosis had significantly faster LTL shortening over 2 years than those without osteoporosis. We hope this study will help elucidate the underlying mechanisms in the relationship between LTL and osteoporosis in the future.