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 Alzheimer's Association hosted the second Latinos & Alzheimer's Symposium in May 2021.
Why it matters
This is a summary of the Alzheimer's Association's second Latinos & Alzheimer's Symposium (online, May 2021), not a new study. It restates that Latinos in the US are projected to see "the steepest increase in Alzheimer's disease … in the next 40 years" of any ethnic group, yet have "limited access to quality care" and are "severely underrepresented" in dementia research and trials. It points to Spanish-language cognitive assessments, better recruitment of Latinos into research, and support for Latino caregivers as the areas the field is working on.
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Cognitive impairment is a well-recognized key feature of schizophrenia.
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However, due to the synergistic effect between diabetic pathology and neuroinflammation, and the prothrombotic profile in patients with diabetes, whether vitamin D is associated with risk of dementia among patients with diabetes is unclear.
Why it matters
This study investigated whether circulating vitamin D levels are linked to dementia risk among adults with type 2 diabetes. It examined risks of all-cause dementia, Alzheimer's disease, and vascular dementia in this group.
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Adherence to the Mediterranean-DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay (MIND) diet has been linked to a decreased risk of dementia, but reverse causality and residual confounding by lifestyle may partly account for this link.
Why it matters
This study examined whether the MIND diet is linked to lower dementia risk while trying to account for reverse causality and lifestyle confounding. It does not establish that following the MIND diet prevents dementia, and the findings are about associations in a population study.
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53/100
Among 370,094 persons with dementia, 93,801 (25.4%) were in MA (mean age [SD], 86.9 [7.7], 67.6% female), 39,586 (10.7%) were ACO attributed (mean age [SD], 87.2 [7.6], 67.3% female), and 236,707 (63.9%) were in TM (mean age [SD], 87.0 [7.8], 67.6% female).
Why it matters
Among people with dementia who died, those in Medicare Advantage were less likely to be hospitalized in the last 30 days of life or die in the hospital compared to those in traditional Medicare. Those in accountable care organizations did not experience less costly or burdensome care compared to traditional Medicare.
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Robust approaches to study design and analysis are critical to negotiate issues related to the intervention.
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53/100
Between 1997 and 2016, we repeatedly assessed cognitive function with 5 tests in 9514 participants aged 45-90 years from the population-based Rotterdam Study.
Why it matters
This population-based study described how cognitive and motor function change with age in people aged 45 to 90 who were free of dementia, stroke, and parkinsonism. It charts normal aging trajectories and does not test any treatment, cure, or prevention.
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Future studies should emphasize collection of relevant psychosocial factors in addition to the development of intentional diversity and inclusion efforts to improve the racial/ethnic and socioeconomic representativeness of AD studies.
Why it matters
This study examined brain imaging markers of amyloid, tau and neurodegeneration in African American and white cognitively normal adults. It found greater neurodegeneration in African American participants and suggests that area-level socioeconomic status may contribute to these differences, pointing to modifiable social factors rather than a treatment or cure.
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Vascular contributions to cognitive impairment and dementia (VCID) are characterized by the aging neurovascular unit being confronted with and failing to cope with biological insults due to systemic and cerebral vascular disease, proteinopathy including Alzheimer's biology, metabolic disease, or immune response, resulting in cognitive decline.
Why it matters
This workshop report says that better understanding of the biological mechanisms of vascular contributions to cognitive impairment and dementia may lead to potential prevention and new treatment strategies. It also suggests that understanding social determinants of health could inform strategies to reduce racial and ethnic disparities in these conditions.
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Educational attainment does not contribute to CR similarly across racial/ethnic groups.
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Though it is not without inherent challenges, fNIRS may have advantages over other neuroimaging techniques in the areas of speech and language impairment. fNIRS has clinical applications that may lead to improved early and differential diagnosis, increase our understanding of response to treatment, improve neuroprosthetic functioning, and advance neurofeedback.
Why it matters
This systematic review found 34 functional near-infrared spectroscopy studies involving people with speech or language impairment across nine categories, including dementia and dementia of the Alzheimer's type. It maps how the technique has been used for studying neural correlates of speech-language impairment and reports no treatment, cure or prevention.
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This study investigated the benefits of resistance training on cognition in patients with mild cognitive impairment.
Why it matters
This review of seven trials found that resistance training improved general cognitive function and executive function in people with mild cognitive impairment, but not working memory. The authors call for larger studies, so it does not yet show that this training prevents or treats Alzheimer's disease.
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We demonstrated that it was both feasible and acceptable to set up these sensors in the community and unobtrusively collect data.
Why it matters
In this cross-sectional feasibility study, 49 community-dwelling seniors with and without mild cognitive impairment were monitored with in-home sensors over 2 months. MCI participants forgot their medications more times per month compared with healthy cognition participants, and the study demonstrated that setting up these sensors and unobtrusively collecting data was feasible and acceptable.
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The blood-brain barrier (BBB) is a complex and dynamic physiological interface between brain parenchyma and cerebral vasculature.
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53/100
Population health research is increasingly focused on the genetic determinants of healthy ageing, but there is no public resource of whole genome sequences and phenotype data from healthy elderly individuals.
Why it matters
This resource provides whole genome sequences and phenotype data from 2,570 elderly Australians who were depleted for cancer, cardiovascular disease, and dementia. These individuals had fewer disease-associated common and rare germline variants compared with cancer cases and other cohorts, which may help researchers study the genetics of healthy aging.
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The diagnosis of dementia, especially in the most advanced stages, represents an important risk factor for mortality in COVID-19 patients.
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53/100
Overall, 5% of the study population (n=161,801) received 2+ months of HCC visits; of these, 46% also received 2+ HBMC visits (n=73,638) while 54% received only skilled home health (n=88,163 HCC but no HBMC).
Why it matters
This study described home-based care visits and care coordination among older adults, noting that 35% of home-based medical care recipients had dementia. It is about patterns of home care delivery rather than treating, curing or preventing Alzheimer's disease.
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The ability of the model to discriminate incident cases of dementia implies that it can be a worthwhile tool to screen patients for trial recruitment and patient management.
Why it matters
A machine learning model using administrative and electronic health record data predicted incident mild cognitive impairment, Alzheimer's disease and related dementias, with 47% sensitivity and an area-under-the-curve of 87% at two years. This is a screening and prediction tool, not a treatment, cure or prevention.
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53/100
As ADRD deaths at home increase, the need for caregiver support and home-based palliative care may become more critical.
Why it matters
Across US deaths from dementia between 2003 and 2017, the share at home rose from 13.6% to 21.9% and in hospice facilities from 0.2% to 6.2%, while nursing-facility deaths fell from 65.7% to 55.0% and hospital deaths from 12.7% to 8.0%. Where people died differed by age, sex, race, Hispanic ethnicity, marital status, education and urban-rural setting. The authors conclude that as more of these deaths happen at home, "the need for caregiver support and home-based palliative care may become more critical." It describes patterns only: it does not show which place of death is better or what patients wanted.
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Traumatic brain injury (TBI) leads to increased rates of dementia, including Alzheimer's disease.
Why it matters
This review describes that traumatic brain injury leads to increased rates of dementia, including Alzheimer's disease, and that the mechanisms by which trauma can trigger neurodegeneration are increasingly understood. It notes that clinical diagnosis of post-traumatic dementia is problematic and that a new approach to assessment is needed, with biomarkers such as MRI and positron emission tomography neuroimaging potentially useful.
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A rapid increase in the number of patients with dementia has emerged as a global health challenge.
Why it matters
This study developed a brief cognitive assessment using eye-tracking technology as a possible alternative to examiner-administered tests like the MMSE. The provided text does not report validation results, so it is unknown whether this method accurately detects cognitive impairment.
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Depression predisposes to medical illnesses and advances biological aging indicated by shorter telomere length, accelerated brain aging and advanced epigenetic aging.
Why it matters
This review is about late-life depression, not about treating, curing or preventing Alzheimer's disease. It discusses treatment approaches for late-life depression, including targeting vascular risk factors in mid-life, dopamine D2/3 agonists, computerized cognitive remediation, neurostimulation and streamlined psychotherapies.
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32.5% of elderly with dementia and 16.9% without were treated with an opioid in 2015.
Why it matters
This study found that opioid use was frequent in elderly people with dementia and varied up to four-fold between municipalities, suggesting differences in how chronic pain is treated in primary care. It does not test a dementia treatment or prevention, so it cannot show how to cure or prevent dementia.
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The notion of what qualifies as vascular dementia has varied greatly since the first mention of dementia after apoplexy in ancient literature.
Why it matters
This review describes vascular dementia as usually having multiple contributing causes, with cerebrovascular disease present in most people with dementia but rarely a cause on its own. It states that dementia risk is about doubled after stroke and that preventing stroke and controlling cardiovascular risk factors from middle age remain cornerstones of prevention.
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Dementia is underdiagnosed, and thus, ICD codes alone cannot serve as a gold standard for diagnosis.
Why it matters
This study developed a weakly supervised machine learning approach using structured and unstructured electronic health record data to detect probable dementia cases in undiagnosed patients. It is about detection and does not test any treatment, cure or prevention.
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.
- Depression, Depression Treatments, and Risk of Incident Dementia: A Prospective Cohort Study of 354,313 Participants
- Leveraging artificial intelligence for analysis of the gut microbiome for dementia diagnosis: a scoping review and discussion
- Subjective cognitive failures and hippocampal volume in elderly with white matter lesions
- Falls in dementia patients
- Investigating dementia patterns by machine learning and graph-based marker analysis for multiclass dementia diagnosis
- Association of Loneliness With 10-Year Dementia Risk and Early Markers of Vulnerability for Neurocognitive Decline
- Pulse pressure and pulse wave velocity are related to cognitive decline in the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging
- Cholinesterase inhibitors for patients with dementia: Patterns of prescribing and disparities in treatment
- The validity and reliability of scales for the evaluation of end-of-life care in advanced dementia
- Bedside cognitive screening to detect dementia and predict poor outcomes in hospitals