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Research

27,380 Alzheimer's and dementia studies in plain English, each scored out of 100.

Find studies

Showing 1–24 of 24 studies in Getting a diagnosis published 2008 · 27,380 in the whole library · How the 0–100 score works

Browse by subject, author or institution

Each number is how many studies that link shows, with your other filters kept.

Other subjects

Authors

Names as each record prints them; the same person can appear under two spellings.

Institutions

From OpenAlex; 12,859 studies have no institution on record and are not counted here.

What “Getting a diagnosis” covers

Getting a diagnosis — How Alzheimer's is identified, how accurate the tests are, and how early it can be caught.

A note on reading research. One study is rarely the final word.

We try to note the size of a study, whether it was in humans or animals, and how early-stage the finding is. If a summary here doesn't make that clear, treat it with extra caution and check the original source.

Incident dementia and blood pressure lowering in the Hypertension in the Very Elderly Trial cognitive function assessment (HYVET-COG): a double-blind, placebo controlled trial

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 76 out of 100. The Lancet. Neurology 2008-07-07

Observational epidemiological studies have shown a positive association between hypertension and risk of incident dementia; however, the effects of antihypertensive therapy on cognitive function in controlled trials have been conflicting, and meta-analyses of the trials have not provided clear evidence of whether antihypertensive treatment reduces dementia incidence. 5 key findings →

Design: meta-analysis Participants: 1,687 Evidence: high

Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Free full text

A meta-analysis of the accuracy of the mini-mental state examination in the detection of dementia and mild cognitive impairment

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 65 out of 100. Journal of psychiatric research 2008-06-24

The MMSE is the most widely used cognitive test but its accuracy and clinical utility in diagnosing cognitive disorders is not fully known. 2 key findings →

Design: meta-analysis Evidence: high

Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Full text may need a subscription

Memory impairment, executive dysfunction, and intellectual decline in preclinical Alzheimer's disease

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 65 out of 100. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society : JINS 2008-03-01

In the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging (BLSA), we examined the temporal unfolding of declining performance on tests of episodic memory (Free Recall on the Free and Cued Selective Reminding Test), executive function (Category Fluency, Letter Fluency, and Trails), and Verbal Intelligence (Nelson, 1982; American Version of the Nelson Adult Reading Test [AMNART]) before the diagnosis of dementia in 92 subjects with incident Alzheimer's disease (AD) followed for up to 15 years before diagnosis. 2 key findings →

Design: longitudinal study Participants: 92 Evidence: moderate

Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Free full text

Quantifying the risk of neurodegenerative disease in idiopathic REM sleep behavior disorder

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 62 out of 100. Neurology 2008-12-24

Although we have found a slightly lower risk than other reports, the risk of developing neurodegenerative disease in idiopathic REM sleep behavior disorder is substantial, with the majority of patients developing Parkinson disease and Lewy body dementia. 2 key findings →

Participants: 113 Evidence: low

Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Free full text

Multicenter standardized 18F-FDG PET diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment, Alzheimer's disease, and other dementias

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 59 out of 100. Journal of nuclear medicine : official publication, Society of Nuclear Medicine 2008-02-20

Standardized automated analysis of (18)F-FDG PET scans may provide an objective and sensitive support to the clinical diagnosis in early dementia. 1 key finding →

Participants: 548 Evidence: low

Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Free full text

The Mayo Clinic Study of Aging: design and sampling, participation, baseline measures and sample characteristics

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 58 out of 100. Neuroepidemiology 2008-02-07

Strengths of the study are that the subjects were randomly selected from a defined population, the majority of the subjects were examined in person, and MCI was defined using published criteria. 1 key finding →

Participants: 2,719 Evidence: moderate

Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Free full text

Detecting dementia with the mini-mental state examination in highly educated individuals

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 58 out of 100. Archives of neurology 2008-07-01

Older patients with a college education who present with complaints of cognitive decline (reported by themselves or others) and score less than 27 on the MMSE are at a greater risk of being diagnosed with dementia and should be referred for a comprehensive dementia evaluation, including formal neuropsychological testing. 2 key findings →

Participants: 307 Evidence: moderate

Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Free full text

Association of olfactory dysfunction with risk for future Parkinson's disease

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 57 out of 100. Annals of neurology 2008-02-01

Although olfactory dysfunction is commonly associated with Parkinson's disease (PD), it is not known whether such dysfunction can predate the onset of clinical PD in a community-based population. 2 key findings →

Evidence: moderate

Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Full text may need a subscription

Parkinson's disease-cognitive rating scale: a new cognitive scale specific for Parkinson's disease

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 51 out of 100. Movement disorders : official journal of the Movement Disorder Society 2008-05-01

Cognitive defects associated with cortical pathology may be a marker of dementia in Parkinson's disease (PD). 4 key findings →

Participants: 92 Evidence: low

Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Full text may need a subscription

A critical evaluation of the Braak staging scheme for Parkinson's disease

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 49 out of 100. Annals of neurology 2008-11-01

Braak and colleagues have proposed that, within the central nervous system, Parkinson's disease (PD) begins as a synucleinopathy in nondopaminergic structures of the lower brainstem or in the olfactory bulb. 1 key finding →

Evidence: low

Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Free full text

EEG comparisons in early Alzheimer's disease, dementia with Lewy bodies and Parkinson's disease with dementia patients with a 2-year follow-up

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 49 out of 100. Brain : a journal of neurology 2008-01-17

Although it has been suggested that variations in mean EEG frequency are greater in the former, the existence of meaningful differences remains controversial. 1 key finding →

Evidence: low

Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Full text may need a subscription

Brief screening for mild cognitive impairment in elderly outpatient clinic: validation of the Korean version of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 46 out of 100. Journal of geriatric psychiatry and neurology 2008-06-01

The Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) is a brief cognitive screening tool with high sensitivity for screening patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). 1 key finding →

Evidence: low

Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Full text may need a subscription

Sanfilippo syndrome: a mini-review

✓ Peer-reviewed alzhub usefulness score 45 out of 100. Journal of inherited metabolic disease 2008-04-04

Mucopolysaccharidosis type III (MPS III, Sanfilippo syndrome) is an autosomal recessive disorder, caused by a deficiency in one of the four enzymes involved in the lysosomal degradation of the glycosaminoglycan heparan sulfate. 5 key findings →

Evidence: low

Full summary, score breakdown and related studies → Original source Full text may need a subscription

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Where “Free full text” comes from

Free full text links and the Full text may need a subscription label come from Unpaywall, Europe PMC and OpenAlex records of free copies, checked 10 Oct 2026. A study with neither is unknown, not paywalled. Show only studies that are free to read

How the 0–100 score works — and why some entries are capped

This is alzhub's own score. It is not an official metric, not an impact factor, and no journal, publisher or ranking body endorses it. We built it so that a reader who is not a scientist can tell a landmark trial from a conference abstract without having to already know the difference. Every point comes from one of 20 components, all of them printed on the study itself, so you can disagree with our arithmetic rather than having to trust the total.

  • Journal tier up to 10 pts
  • Journal's citation record up to 4 pts
  • Study design up to 12 pts
  • Strength of evidence up to 5 pts
  • Peer-review validation up to 10 pts
  • How recent up to 5 pts
  • Sample size up to 4 pts
  • Effect reported up to 3 pts
  • Studied in people up to 3 pts
  • Randomised / blinded up to 2 pts
  • Times cited up to 7 pts
  • Citations per year up to 5 pts
  • Impact for its field and year up to 6 pts
  • Cited by studies here up to 6 pts
  • Still being cited up to 4 pts
  • Senior author's track record up to 4 pts
  • Institution's track record up to 3 pts
  • Multi-centre collaboration up to 3 pts
  • Indexed in PubMed up to 2 pts
  • Free to read up to 2 pts

Journals are placed in ordered tiers, never given a numeric impact factor — we could not verify current impact factors from a source we control, and an invented one would be worse than none. Tier 1 is the top-tier general journals (NEJM, The Lancet, JAMA, Nature, Science, Nature Medicine); tier 2 is the leading specialty journals; tier 3 is every other peer-reviewed journal. A separate part scores how much the journal's own papers are cited, which tells the tier-3 journals apart.

Two rules we don't bend. First, we never fill in a missing value: if a record does not state a sample size or a design, that component scores zero, and if we simply have no data for a part, such as a citation count, that part is left out and the study is scored on the parts we could check. The study card says which. Second, anything that is not a peer-reviewed article is capped at 16/100 and carries a warning chip — so a conference abstract or a company press release can never outrank a peer-reviewed paper, no matter how good it looks.

We rank a rigorous null result — a good trial showing that something does not work — above an early positive finding. Someone deciding whether to buy a supplement is served by that, and the rigour is already counted by the design and journal components.

The score is computed from the published data alone and is reproducible: the same file always yields the same numbers.

See the whole rubric drawn out → — four charts covering all 27,380 studies: how the scores are spread and where the cap bites, which of the 20 components the library is strong and weak on, which subjects rest on stronger evidence, and what kinds of study each subject is actually built from.

What this library is — and isn't

This is a large sample of the Alzheimer's literature, not an exhaustive index of it. It holds 27,380 records, built mostly from automated pulls of Europe PMC (60.6% of the library) and OpenAlex (18.6%), plus smaller pulls from PubMed, Crossref and medRxiv. If a study, a drug, or a finding isn't here, that is not evidence it doesn't exist in the literature — it may simply not have been pulled in yet.

1,032 records (3.8% of the library) are not peer-reviewed — 962 of those are preprints posted before any journal review, and the rest are conference abstracts, regulatory notices and reports. Every study card on this page states its status plainly, and the score above is capped for anything that isn't a peer-reviewed article.

See the full, machine-readable breakdown of this library's coverage →

Newest studies, as a dated timeline →    Atom feed