Seem to be reading about this vaccine a lot recently. New Research: The Shingles Vaccine May Also Be A Dementia Vaccine. They are still some way off cracking dementia, but has anyone ever experienced an elderly person suffering shingles and then developing dementia not long afterwards? The reason I ask is that my grandmother - aged 73, very independent, content and getting on with her life - caught shingles at that age, then very shortly afterwards experienced very severe depression where she was hospitalised, then social anxiety/a complete collapse of confidence, and the symptoms of dementia, which worsened over the next decade. My mum always said, 'it all started with those old shingles' - any truth in this, or was it all just coincidence? Dementia does run in the maternal line of our family and they can't all have had shingles in their 70s (or maybe they did, who knows?)