Each study has a usefulness score out of 100 (rubric version 4.0). Tap a score to see what makes it up.
Download bibliography of all 8,018 studies, highest score first: BibTeX (.bib) · RIS (.ris)
Highest usefulness score first. Studies without a score come last.
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Patients with Parkinson's disease have a number of specific visual disturbances.
Why it matters
This review describes various visual problems in Parkinson's disease and discusses visual testing as a possible biomarker and predictor of dementia in Parkinson's disease. It does not address treating, curing or preventing Alzheimer's disease.
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It could be of great improvement for the use of the MMSE in dementia screening in Chinese elderly population.
Why it matters
This large Chinese study produced age-, gender-, education- and residence-specific norms for the Mini-Mental State Examination to improve dementia screening. It is about test scoring and diagnosis, not about treating, curing or preventing Alzheimer's disease.
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Attenuation of racial inequalities in older age can be extended to cognitive outcomes, which probably reflects selective survival.
Why it matters
This study found that racial disparities in memory and executive functioning were larger at younger than older ages in two cohort studies. It suggests selective survival may affect cognitive disparities, but it does not test any treatment, cure or prevention for Alzheimer's disease.
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The American Heart Association developed the ideal cardiovascular health (CVH) index as a simple tool to promote CVH; yet, its association with brain atrophy and dementia remains unexamined.
Why it matters
This study examined whether a heart-healthy lifestyle score relates to brain injury, stroke, dementia, cognitive decline and brain shrinkage over about 7 years. It is observational, so it cannot prove that improving cardiovascular health prevents dementia.
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Early reports of cognitive and behavioural deficits in motor neuron disease might have been overlooked initially, but the concept of a frontotemporal dementia-motor neuron disease continuum has emerged during the past decade.
Why it matters
This review describes frontotemporal dementia and motor neuron disease as overlapping conditions sharing TDP-43 pathology, with the C9orf72 repeat expansion common across the spectrum. It states that the C9orf72 repeat expansion suggests possible therapeutic targets, but no treatment is reported here.
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The burden of comorbidity in people with epilepsy is high.
Why it matters
This review notes that dementia is more common in people with epilepsy and that preliminary evidence suggests some conditions such as depression and migraine negatively affect seizure outcome and quality of life. It does not test any treatment, cure, or prevention for Alzheimer's disease.
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Our pilot study results indicate that it is feasible to recruit, retain, and provide follow-up telephone coaching to older adults after hip fracture.
Why it matters
This pilot trial tested telephone coaching after hip fracture and excluded people with physician-diagnosed dementia. It provides no information about treating, curing, or preventing Alzheimer's disease.
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Delirium and dementia are two of the most common causes of cognitive impairment in older populations, yet their interrelation remains poorly understood.
Why it matters
This review states that dementia is the leading risk factor for delirium and that delirium is an independent risk factor for subsequent development of dementia. It suggests that new preventive and therapeutic approaches targeting delirium might offer an opportunity for early intervention and prevention of irreversible cognitive decline.
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Neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS) are common in dementia and in predementia syndromes such as mild cognitive impairment (MCI).
Why it matters
This paper proposes provisional diagnostic criteria for mild behavioral impairment (MBI): neuropsychiatric symptoms that the authors say signal a higher risk of dementia, in people with or without cognitive symptoms. Unlike earlier definitions, its criteria allow MBI to co-occur with mild cognitive impairment, though the authors consider the two different. It reports no new data; the criteria are offered as a template for future validation, not a tested diagnosis or treatment.
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Neurocognitive disorders--including delirium, mild cognitive impairment and dementia--are characterized by decline from a previously attained level of cognitive functioning.
Why it matters
This article describes the DSM-5 approach to classifying neurocognitive disorders, including mild cognitive impairment and dementia, by first describing cognitive syndromes and then defining aetiological subtypes. It concerns classification and diagnosis only and reports no treatment, cure, or prevention.
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The relationship between depression and dementia is complex and still not well understood.
Why it matters
This review found convincing evidence that early life depression can act as a risk factor for later life dementia, and that later life depression can be a prodrome to dementia. It highlights the need to examine whether effective treatment of depressive episodes reduces the prevalence of dementia, and for clinicians to carefully follow up late life depression for future cognitive impairment.
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Four subtypes emerged: (1) dysnomic (n = 153), (2) dysexecutive (n = 102), (3) amnestic (n = 288), and (4) cluster-derived normal (n = 282) who performed within normal limits on cognitive testing.
Why it matters
This study used cluster analysis on cognitive test data from 825 people diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment and found four subtypes, including one group that performed normally on testing. This suggests some people diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment may be misclassified, which matters for research and diagnosis but does not test a treatment.
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With advances in knowledge disease, boundaries may change.
Why it matters
This discussion article from a task force raises questions about how Parkinson's disease should be defined, including whether dementia should remain an exclusion criterion. It is about disease definition and does not report a treatment, cure or prevention for Alzheimer's disease.
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A new secondary prevention trial in older people with amyloid accumulation at high risk for Alzheimer's disease dementia should provide insights into whether anti-amyloid therapy can delay cognitive decline.
Why it matters
This 2014 article introduces the A4 study, a secondary prevention trial in older people who have amyloid build-up in the brain and are at high risk of Alzheimer's dementia but do not yet have symptoms. It sets out what the trial was designed to test: whether anti-amyloid therapy "can delay cognitive decline". It reports no results, so it is not evidence that the treatment works or that it fails.
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56/100
This is the largest study so far documenting a delayed onset of dementia in bilingual patients and the first one to show it separately in different dementia subtypes.
Why it matters
In records of 648 people diagnosed with dementia at a specialist clinic, those who spoke two languages first showed symptoms about 4.5 years later than those who spoke one. The gap held up after adjusting for education, occupation, sex and urban/rural living, and also appeared in people who could not read. Speaking more than two languages added no further delay. Because everyone studied already had dementia, this links bilingualism to *later* onset, not to avoiding or curing the disease.
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Vascular cognitive impairment defines alterations in cognition, ranging from subtle deficits to full-blown dementia, attributable to cerebrovascular causes.
Why it matters
This narrative review defines vascular cognitive impairment as changes in thinking "attributable to cerebrovascular causes", from subtle deficits to dementia. It notes that vascular damage often coexists with Alzheimer's disease. It sets out to examine how damaged blood vessels disrupt their support of nerve and glial cells, especially in the brain's white matter, and it highlights "the importance of midlife vascular risk factor control in the prevention of late-life dementia." It is an expert review, not a trial, so that prevention point is the author's emphasis rather than a tested result.
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Even before dementia becomes apparent, cognitive decline may contribute to deterioration in oral health.
Why it matters
This study looked at whether six-year cognitive decline in middle-aged adults was linked to oral health behaviors and conditions. It does not show that treating oral health problems prevents cognitive decline or dementia, and it is an observational cohort study.
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Using the OSHPE criteria, we found more participants with MCI than with frailty.
Why it matters
In this cross-sectional survey of older Japanese adults, the combined prevalence of frailty and mild cognitive impairment was 2.7%, and frailty and MCI were significantly related (adjusted odds ratio 2.0). The study found more participants with MCI than with frailty, but it cannot show whether this population is at increased risk for disability or mortality.
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Alzheimer's disease (AD), the most common type of dementia, is a severe neurodegenerative disorder.
Why it matters
This study describes a computer method for modeling how Alzheimer's disease progresses over time. It does not test any treatment, cure, or prevention for the disease.
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The vast majority of men > or =50 years old initially diagnosed with iRBD in this study eventually developed a parkinsonian disorder/dementia, often after a prolonged interval from onset of iRBD, with the mean interval being 14 years while the range extended to 29 years.
Why it matters
In this 16-year follow-up, 80.8% of men initially diagnosed with idiopathic REM sleep behaviour disorder eventually developed parkinsonism or dementia, often after a long interval. The authors say this group could be used for research on neuroprotective agents, but no treatment, cure or prevention is demonstrated here.
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Feeling lonely rather than being alone is associated with an increased risk of clinical dementia in later life and can be considered a major risk factor that, independently of vascular disease, depression and other confounding factors, deserves clinical attention.
Why it matters
Older people who felt lonely were more likely to develop dementia, while social isolation was not linked to higher risk. This identifies loneliness as a possible risk factor but does not test any treatment, cure or prevention.
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Grief in dementia carers can be expected; however, those at risk of distressing anticipatory and complicated grief may be identified and targeted for intervention when necessary.
Why it matters
This systematic review of 31 publications found that grief in dementia carers, which may be normal or complicated, is a complex reaction to losses before and after death, with anticipatory grief reported between 47% and 71% and complicated grief after death estimated around 20%. Being a spouse carer and being depressed were the strongest predictors of grief after death, but the evidence on prevalence was of poor quality.
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One of the most devastating nonmotor manifestations of PD is dementia.
Why it matters
In 42 Parkinson's disease patients followed about 4 years, 48% of those with REM sleep behaviour disorder at baseline developed dementia compared to none without it. This small prospective study suggests REM sleep behaviour disorder may mark a higher risk of dementia in Parkinson's disease, but it does not test a treatment or cure.
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Modifiable risk factors for MCI should be sought (at the very latest) in persons who already have MCI, as their optimal treatment may improve these patients' cognitive performance or keep the existing deficits from progressing.
Why it matters
This review found that mild cognitive impairment and dementia are associated with somatic disorders and modifiable risk factors such as hypertension, diabetes and hyperlipidemia, but that interventional trials for these have yielded negative results. It also found insufficient evidence for benefits from vitamin or hormone substitution, while epidemiological data suggest a Mediterranean diet and physical activity may help.
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59 recruiting sites for the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative.
Why it matters
This study tried to work out how many points a person's score on the ADAS-Cog memory-and-thinking test must change before clinicians judge it a real worsening in mild Alzheimer's disease. Using outpatients from 59 Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative sites, it compared score changes over 6 and 12 months with clinicians' judgements of worsening in memory, other thinking skills, dementia rating and daily function. It is about how to interpret change on a test, not about treating, curing or preventing the disease.
From across this topic
10 of the 7,967 studies in this topic, picked by a fixed rule (a hash of each study's address), not by score or date; each page of this list shows a different 10. The same 10 appear here every time.
- Cardiovascular contributions to dementia: Examining sex differences and female‐specific factors
- Home Health Delivery for Persons With Dementia: Impacts of the New Medicare Payment System
- Vascular cognitive impairment: current concepts and clinical developments
- Effect of choline alfoscerate in older adult patients with dementia: an observational study from the claims data of national health insurance
- Editor’s view
- ESPEN Guidelines on Enteral Nutrition: Geriatrics
- Epidemiology of diabetes and diabetes complications in the elderly: an emerging public health burden
- Dementia in primary care: a qualitative study with general practitioners and caregivers with and without migration backgrounds
- The association of race, gender, and comorbidity with mortality and function after hip fracture
- Dementia Family Caregivers’ Involvement and Perceived Challenges in Health Care Interactions: Informing the GUIDE Model