Photo Credit: Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology
New research links glaucoma and hypertension to increased risk of dementia
May 12, 2026
Researchers presented a poster at the 2026 Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) meeting showing that glaucoma and hypertension were associated with poorer cognitive performance on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA).
Using an AI-ready dataset, Jason Greenfield, MD, Alon Harris, MD and Yash Lahoti found both conditions were more common among patients with lower MoCA scores. The investigators suggest a shared vascular-dysfunction etiology connecting ocular disease and cognitive decline, noting intraocular pressure remains the only FDA-recognized treatable glaucoma risk factor. They propose that retinal imaging modalities such as optical coherence tomography (OCT) and fundus photography could yield imaging biomarkers to stratify dementia risk early.
Lahoti emphasized that integrating electronic health records and imaging enables development of models and statistical techniques that capture variability across a patient’s clinical history, improving prediction of ocular complications and related cognitive diseases. These findings may guide future research into imaging-based biomarkers and predictive tools for cognitive dysfunction and dementia.
