Each study has a usefulness score out of 100 (rubric version 4.0). Tap a score to see what makes it up.
Highest usefulness score first. Studies without a score come last.
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55/100
Community-based cohorts of older persons may differ neuropathologically from clinic-based cohorts.
Why it matters
People with Alzheimer's dementia in community-based cohorts had less severe Alzheimer's pathology and more cerebral infarcts than those in a clinic-based cohort. This shows that the brain changes found at autopsy can differ by where people were recruited, which matters for interpreting research.
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55/100
A 10-15% ACR only appears to hold true in clinical samples monitored over a short observation period.
Why it matters
This pooled analysis of 15 long-term studies found a mean annual conversion rate from mild cognitive impairment to dementia of 4.2%, lower than rates reported in studies shorter than 5 years, suggesting risk of progression diminishes with longer observation. It concerns prognosis and does not test any treatment, cure or prevention.
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In recent years, there has been a strong interest in physical activity as a primary behavioural prevention strategy against cognitive decline.
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55/100
There has been recent interest in the application of machine learning techniques to neuroimaging-based diagnosis.
Why it matters
On the same brain scans, a computer method (support vector machines) and six radiologists both tried to tell Alzheimer's disease apart from normal ageing and from frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD). For Alzheimer's vs healthy ageing, the computer was right 93–95% of the time and the radiologists 65–95%, and the authors judged well-trained neuroradiologists "comparable"; the computer's clearest lead was in separating Alzheimer's from FTLD (89% vs a radiologist median of 71%). This is a diagnostic-accuracy comparison on already-labelled groups. It does not show the tool is ready for routine clinical use, and it says nothing about treatment.
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Cross-sectional and longitudinal observation.
Why it matters
This observational study found that higher socioeconomic status in nondemented older adults was linked to smaller whole-brain volume, which the authors interpret as more preclinical brain atrophy. It does not test any treatment, cure, or prevention, so it offers no direct guidance for those goals.
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Cognitive decline and dementia have a deep impact on the health and quality of life of older subjects and their caregivers.
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A preceding article described the clinical features of Parkinson's disease dementia (PD-D) and proposed clinical diagnostic criteria for "probable" and "possible" PD-D. The main focus of this article is to operationalize the diagnosis of PD-D and to propose practical guidelines based on a two level process depending upon the clinical scenario and the expertise of the evaluator involved in the assessment.
Why it matters
This report offers practical guidelines for diagnosing dementia in Parkinson's disease using a two-level process, with Level I for general clinicians and Level II for more detailed assessment. The authors state that some tests lack evidence-based standards in this context and that further validation and changes to cutoff values will be needed in future studies.
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55/100
Essential hypertension can be defined as a rise in blood pressure of unknown cause that increases risk for cerebral, cardiac, and renal events.
Why it matters
This review states that dementia usually happens only after long periods of uncontrolled hypertension, and that all antihypertensive drugs lower blood pressure, which is the best determinant of cardiovascular risk reduction. It reports no direct evidence that blood pressure treatment prevents or cures Alzheimer's disease.
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The prevalence of dementia in this population is similar to that reported from other areas in mainland China and Taiwan with aging being a significant risk factor.
Why it matters
This cross-sectional study measured how common dementia and Alzheimer's disease were in a rural area of China. It found that older age was a significant risk factor, and that being female and having fewer years of education were associated with higher prevalence of Alzheimer's disease.
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Individuals with all types of mild cognitive impairment have an elevated risk of dementia over 3 years, more so in those with an APOE epsilon4 allele.
Why it matters
In this population study, 46% of people with mild cognitive impairment at baseline converted to dementia within three years, compared with 3.3% of those without impairment. Carriers of at least one APOE epsilon 4 allele with cognitive impairment had a 22- to 25-fold higher risk of dementia than unimpaired individuals.
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Clinical and neuropsychological features contribute to delineating the spectrum of pathology underlying a patient diagnosed with FTLD, but biomarkers are needed that, together with the clinical phenotype, can predict the underlying neuropathology.
Why it matters
This clinicopathological study found that frontotemporal dementia can be caused by multiple different pathologies, including tauopathies, FTLD with ubiquitin-positive inclusions, and Alzheimer's disease. It shows that clinical features are only statistically associated with the underlying pathology, which matters for diagnosis rather than treatment or cure.
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During the 6534 person-years of follow-up (mean, 5.02 years per person), 440 subjects were diagnosed as having dementia, including 333 with Alzheimer disease.
Why it matters
In this older population, heart failure was linked to a higher risk of dementia and Alzheimer's disease. This is an observed association and does not show that treating heart failure prevents dementia.
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Pneumonia is a common terminal event in advanced dementia for which many patients receive parenteral antibiotics.
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Neuronal degeneration and dopamine loss in the preclinical phase of Parkinson disease may produce subtle complaints before clinically recognizable symptoms emerge.
Why it matters
This Rotterdam Study found that subjective complaints such as stiffness, slowness, tremors, or imbalance in people without parkinsonian signs were related to a higher risk of future Parkinson disease. It concerns Parkinson disease, not Alzheimer's disease, and offers no treatment or cure.
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55/100
The authors hypothesize that there is a phase of increased medial temporal lobe activation early in the course of prodromal Alzheimer disease followed by a subsequent decrease as the disease progresses.
Why it matters
This small imaging study found that people with mild cognitive impairment had greater hippocampal activation during a learning task than healthy controls, while those with Alzheimer's disease had reduced activation and shrinkage. The authors suggest a phase of increased brain activity may occur early in the disease, but this does not offer a treatment, cure or prevention.
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For most institutionalized persons with advanced dementia, a decision to forgo hospitalization is not made until death is imminent.
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55/100
The authors reviewed 135 subjects from a community-based study of dementia for whom autopsy and brain tissue was available.
Why it matters
This study compared neuropsychological test performance among 135 community-based autopsy subjects with Alzheimer disease, Lewy body pathology alone, or both. It describes cognitive differences linked to different brain pathologies and does not test any treatment, cure or prevention.
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Older adults with dementia who take atypical antipsychotics have a similar risk of ischaemic stroke to those taking typical antipsychotics.
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Age-related white matter changes (ARWMC) on brain MRI have been associated with cognitive, motor, mood and urinary disturbances.
Why it matters
The LADIS study was designed to assess whether age-related white matter changes on MRI independently predict the transition to disability in initially nondisabled elderly people, with dementia as a secondary outcome. This paper describes the rationale, design and methodology, so it reports no results on treating, curing or preventing Alzheimer's disease.
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DeMonte Jr., MD, Joshua Chodosh, MD, MSHS, Xinping Cui, PhD, Stefanie Vassar, MS, Naihua Duan, PhD, and Martin Lee, PhDReduced Health Care Costs Associated With Disease Management for Chronic Heart Failure: A Study Using Three Methods to Examine the Financial Impact of a Heart Failure Disease Management Program Among Medicare Advantage EnrolleesEffects of Nurse Management on the Quality of Heart Failure Care in Minority Communities A Randomized TrialJane E.
Why it matters
This article discusses heart failure disease management programs and their financial impact among Medicare Advantage enrollees. It does not address Alzheimer's disease treatment, cure, or prevention.
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Although concerns about increased bleeding risk with combined warfarin-antiplatelet therapy are not unfounded, the risk of bleeding is moderately increased.
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Caregivers who institutionalized their relative reported depressive symptoms and anxiety to be as high as they were while in-home caregivers.
Why it matters
In this US study of 1,222 dementia caregivers, the 180 whose relative moved into long-term care reported depression and anxiety as high after the move as before it (median depression score 15 both times). The strain was greatest for spouses and for those who visited often; the authors note almost half of spouses visited daily and kept helping with physical care. They suggest caregivers be prepared for the move and treated for depression and anxiety afterwards, not assumed to be relieved by it.
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Overall, 92% of patients had one or more dementia-related behaviors.
Why it matters
In this sample, black and Latino patients with moderate to severe dementia were reported to have more dementia-related behaviours than white patients. This describes differences in behaviour prevalence and does not test any treatment, cure, or prevention for Alzheimer's disease.
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Within a heterogenous group of MCI patients, including many with clinically significant CVD, baseline memory and executive performance significantly predicted likelihood to develop dementia.
Why it matters
This study followed 52 people with mild cognitive impairment, many of them with stroke or other blood-vessel disease in the brain, for about three years; a third developed dementia, and most of those were diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Poorer memory scores and a smaller hippocampus predicted who progressed, and executive function was a borderline predictor, while past stroke, small infarcts, white-matter changes, vascular risk factors and APOE genotype did not. Because the group was small, these null results do not show that vascular disease or APOE are unimportant, and the study tested no treatment.
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55/100
The mean follow-up period for the cohort was 34 months.
Why it matters
In 75 people with mild cognitive impairment (average age 63), a visual rating of shrinkage in the brain's medial temporal lobe on MRI, scored on a 5-point scale, was linked to later dementia: each point higher went with about 1.5 times the hazard of developing dementia over an average of 34 months, during which 49% of the group did so. The authors tested this simple rating because detailed volume measurement is hard to use in routine clinics. Because scores overlapped between people who did and did not develop dementia, the authors say a score should be read as shifting an individual's odds, not as a diagnosis.
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.
- Balancing Burdens and Benefits: Ethical Issues of Off‐Label Prescription Pharmaceutical Use
- Nationwide Availability of and Enrollment in Medicare and Medicaid Dual-Eligible Special Needs Plans With Exclusively Aligned Enrollment
- Pathways to dementia diagnosis: evidence for cross-ethnic differences
- Contribution of chronic diseases to disability in elderly people in countries with low and middle incomes: a 10/66 Dementia Research Group population-based survey
- Improving decision-making for feeding options in advanced dementia: a randomized, controlled trial
- The Movement Disorder Society Evidence-Based Medicine Review Update: Treatments for the non-motor symptoms of Parkinson's disease
- Family In The Loop: Enabling Family Involvement and Person-Centered Dementia Care at Long-Term Care Facilities with Collaborative AI Tools
- MCI Diagnosis and Neighborhood Disadvantage Predict Differences in White Matter Microstructure in a Rural Aging Cohort
- End-of-life care for people with advanced dementia and pain: a qualitative study in Swedish nursing homes
- Cholinesterase inhibitors for vascular dementia and other vascular cognitive impairments: a network meta-analysis