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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The authors recruited 83 patients with PD and 50 controls, all without dementia at initial assessment, and assessed them at regular intervals over a maximum period of 122 months.
Why it matters
In a 10-year study of 83 patients with Parkinson's disease and 50 controls, 17 patients and no controls developed dementia. This concerns dementia in Parkinson's disease, not Alzheimer's disease, and reports no treatment, cure or prevention.
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Nondemented individuals without cardiovascular or other age-associated diseases of age > or =85 years were followed until death.
Why it matters
This longitudinal study followed nondemented people aged 85 and over until death and related brain plaque and tangle severity to cognitive measures. It describes how brain changes accompany aging, not how to treat, cure or prevent Alzheimer's disease.
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There was no relation between the amount of NIH funding and the incidence, prevalence, or number of hospital days attributed to each condition or disease (P=0.82, P=0.23, and P=0.21, respectively).
Why it matters
This cross-sectional study compared National Institutes of Health funding with measures of disease burden and found no relation between funding and incidence, prevalence, or hospital days. It found only weak links with deaths and years of life lost, while disability-adjusted life-years were strongly predictive of funding.
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One of the major symptoms of semantic dementia (or progressive fluent aphasia) is profound word-finding difficulties.
Why it matters
This study examined factors affecting picture naming in eight patients with semantic dementia and one followed longitudinally. It found that object familiarity, word frequency and age-of-acquisition predicted naming success, but it is about understanding symptoms, not treating or curing Alzheimer's disease.
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An increase in postload insulin only in women was associated with a decrease in cognitive function (age-adjusted regression coefficient -0.10 per 50 mU/l insulin; 95% CI -0.16 to -0.04).
Why it matters
This study examined the association between insulin levels after a glucose load and cognitive function in an elderly population. It is an observational study of a possible relationship and does not test any treatment, cure, or prevention.
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At the baseline evaluation, 256 (62%) of 414 subjects were designated normal; 109 (26%).
Why it matters
This study found that HIV-infected people with milder neurocognitive impairment had a higher risk of death than those with normal cognition. It is about HIV-related cognitive problems and mortality, not about treating, curing or preventing Alzheimer's disease.
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Previous research has shown that the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMS) is biased as a measure of cognitive impairment in minority and low-education patients.
Why it matters
This study developed a statistical adjustment to the Mini-Mental State Examination for age and education and found the adjusted version was more stable across education levels and ethnic groups. It is about improving dementia screening, not about treating, curing, or preventing the disease.
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Over the past decade it has become evident that a substantial minority of patients with primary dementing diseases, particularly those presenting in the presenium, have dementia of frontal lobe type (DFT) due to non-Alzheimer's pathology.
Why it matters
This paper describes clinical features that can help separate frontal lobe dementia from Alzheimer's disease, noting that Alzheimer's disease is a progressive amnestic disorder with memory deficits. It is about diagnosis and clinical description, not about treating, curing, or preventing Alzheimer's disease.
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A new interview schedule for the diagnosis and measurement of dementia in the elderly is described.
Why it matters
CAMDEX is a structured interview for diagnosing and measuring dementia in older people. It combines an interview with the patient, "a mini-neuropsychological battery" of cognitive tests, and a separate interview with "a relative or other informant". The authors report that it "is acceptable to patients, has a high inter-rater reliability", and that "the cognitive section has been shown to have high sensitivity and specificity", but this record gives no figures for these claims. It is a diagnostic tool, not a treatment, and the record reports no results on early-stage detection.
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Cognitive decline associated with old age and consistent with the diagnosis of primary degenerative dementia is a unique clinical syndrome with characteristic phenomena and progression.
Why it matters
This 1982 paper introduced the Global Deterioration Scale, a tool for assessing primary degenerative dementia and "delineation of its stages." The authors report using it "successfully for more than 5 years" and validating it against behavioral, neuroanatomic, and neurophysiologic measures, but the record we hold gives no patient numbers or validation statistics. It is a way to rate how advanced decline is, not a test that confirms a cause or a treatment.
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Accurate clinical staging of dementia in older subjects has not previously been achieved despite the use of such methods as psychometric testing, behavioural rating, and various combinations of simpler psychometric and behavioural evaluations.
Why it matters
The Clinical Dementia Rating was developed as a global rating device for a prospective study of mild senile dementia of the Alzheimer type. It was found to distinguish unambiguously among older subjects with a wide range of cognitive function, from healthy to severely impaired.
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This preliminary report describes the development, reliability, and validity testing of the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) designed specifically for rating depression in the elderly.
Why it matters
Develops and validates a screening scale for depression in older people, and the authors describe it as a preliminary report. Screening for depression is a measurement task, separate from treating or preventing Alzheimer's disease.
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Factors contributing to feelings of burden of caregivers of elderly persons with senile dementia were studied.
Why it matters
This study of caregivers of elderly persons with senile dementia found that burden was less when more visits were paid to the dementia patient by other relatives. It suggests the importance of providing support to caregivers as a critical step in community care.
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Epilepsy was associated with higher subsequent recording of dementia and mortality over 2 years.
Why it matters
In this matched cohort of adults with Down syndrome, a recorded epilepsy diagnosis was associated with higher later recording of all-cause dementia, Alzheimer's disease, non-Alzheimer dementia, and mortality. It is an observational association and does not show that treating epilepsy would prevent dementia.
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Due to rapid population aging, the number of Chileans with dementia is estimated to triple by 2050.
Why it matters
This paper describes a survey protocol for measuring cognitive function in older Chileans, not a treatment or cure. It provides a resource for studying life-course influences on cognitive health in this population.
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Increased UPF consumption is associated with higher risks of dementia, CIND, and CIND or dementia among US older adults.
Why it matters
This US cohort found that the highest ultraprocessed food intake was linked to higher risks of dementia and cognitive impairment. Being observational, it shows associations and cannot prove cause and effect.
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Traumatic brain injury (TBI), a major cause of persistent cognitive impairment (CI), increases the long-term risk of developing dementia, including Alzheimer's disease (AD).
Why it matters
Reviewing 29 clinical studies, researchers found that body-fluid markers including neurofilament light chain (NfL), total tau and GFAP were consistently associated with thinking problems and brain shrinkage after traumatic brain injury. Different markers mattered at different stages, with GFAP and NfL linked to impairment during the later recovery phase. Since head injury raises long-term dementia risk, the authors point to tau pathology and synaptic dysfunction as potential bridges from brain injury to Alzheimer's disease.
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Both ML short forms showed high internal consistency (α = 0.96 for ML-WHODAS-16 and 0.93 for ML-WHODAS-10) and excellent concurrent validity with the full WHODAS-32 (r = 0.98 for both).
Why it matters
This study developed shorter machine learning versions of a disability assessment questionnaire for people with dementia that closely reflect the full version while reducing assessment burden. It concerns measurement of disability, not the treatment, cure or prevention of Alzheimer's disease, and the authors note external validation is still needed.
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A total of 261 patients (75.3±6.8 years) were recruited from a memory-clinic cohort.
Why it matters
In a memory-clinic population, worse left ventricular heart function was associated with more cerebral small vessel disease markers and lower cognitive scores. This was a cross-sectional study, so it cannot show that improving heart function would prevent or treat cognitive decline.
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53/100
The best-performing model achieved an area under the curve of 0.86 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.84-0.87), with sensitivity of 73.3% (95% CI: 72.3-74.2) and specificity of 87.5% (95% CI: 86.7-88.2).
Why it matters
A machine learning model using routine health records identified dementia with an area under the curve of 0.86, sensitivity of 73.3% and specificity of 87.5%. This is about improving early detection, not treating, curing or preventing the disease.
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Among 118,174 beneficiaries who received an AWV, 27.62% initiated ACP within 4 years compared with 17.46% of nonrecipients (HR, 1.86; 95% CI, 1.84-1.89).
Why it matters
This cohort study found that Medicare beneficiaries with cognitive impairment who received an annual wellness visit were more likely to initiate advance care planning within 4 years than nonrecipients, with most uptake occurring on the same day as the visit. It suggests incorporating advance care planning into annual wellness visit workflows could enhance timely engagement and reduce disparities.
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Regression analysis indicated that APOE ε4 non-carriers showed significantly greater improvement in MMN amplitude (β = ‒0.449, p = 0.027).
Why it matters
In this randomized controlled trial, APOE ε4 non-carriers showed significantly greater improvement in MMN amplitude, and lower baseline physical activity showed a trend toward greater MMN gains. These findings suggest that APOE ε4 carrier status and baseline physical activity may be associated with how well multidomain interventions work in older adults with subjective cognitive decline, but they do not show a treatment or cure.
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Among 2889 patients with delirium (mean age 85 years; 54.7% female), 59.8% were triaged at SETS 1–2 (high priority) and 40.2% at SETS 3–4 (low priority).
Why it matters
Among 2,889 older patients with delirium, 40.2% were triaged as lower priority, and dementia was an independent predictor of lower-priority triage. The study suggests standard emergency triage may underrecognize delirium risk in older adults, but it does not test any treatment or cure.
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Most dementias are preceded by mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a transitional clinical stage characterized by cognitive decline that does not yet significantly interfere with activities of daily living.
Why it matters
This review reports that berry-derived bioactive compounds showed potential in attenuating tau hyperphosphorylation and reducing beta-amyloid accumulation, but the evidence remains limited and requires further confirmation. Human clinical studies remain scarce and findings on metabolic effects are still inconclusive.
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Across imputed data sets, a median of 2,777 eligible individuals were included, with a median of 664 receiving a new HA prescription.
Why it matters
In this observational study, hearing aid use in older people with hearing impairment was associated with a lower estimated 7-year risk of dementia, but overall cognition scores were similar with and without hearing aids. The authors say residual confounding cannot be ruled out and that long-term randomized trials are needed.
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.
- Cognitive and sensory declines in old age: gauging the evidence for a common cause
- High total cholesterol levels in late life associated with a reduced risk of dementia
- Tai Chi enhances cognitive training effects on delaying cognitive decline in mild cognitive impairment
- Healthy brain, healthy life: a review of diet and exercise interventions to promote brain health and reduce Alzheimer's disease risk
- Diet, nutrition and the ageing brain: current evidence and new directions
- Coffee, tea, and caffeine consumption and prevention of late-life cognitive decline and dementia: a systematic review
- Alcohol intake in relation to brain magnetic resonance imaging findings in older persons without dementia
- Handgrip strength and all-cause dementia incidence and mortality: findings from the UK Biobank prospective cohort study
- Motor imagery-based neurofeedback in older adults: neural signatures and feasibility in a randomized controlled trial targeting age-related cognitive decline
- Sertraline or mirtazapine for depression in dementia (HTA-SADD): a randomised, multicentre, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial