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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52/100
In women at higher risk of cognitive decline due to vascular disease or risk factors, adherence to a Mediterranean-style diet was not associated with subsequent 5-year cognitive change.
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Behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD), also known as neuropsychiatric symptoms, represent a heterogeneous group of non-cognitive symptoms and behaviors occurring in subjects with dementia.
Why it matters
This 2012 review describes behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD), such as agitation, depression, apathy, anxiety, delusions, hallucinations and sleep or appetite changes. It estimates they affect "up to 90%" of people with dementia at some point in the illness, and they are linked to caregiver distress, long-term hospitalization, medication misuse and higher costs. It says their cause is not yet clear, and it describes the recommended approach as non-drug methods combined with "careful use" of medicines, while noting that current treatments have only "modest efficacy."
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The majority of hospitalizations of NH residents with advanced dementia were due to infections and thus were potentially avoidable, because infections are often treatable in the NH.
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Dementia, a major cause of disability and institutionalization in older people, poses a serious threat to public health and to the social and economic development of modern society.
Why it matters
This review reports that vascular risk factors contribute to cognitive decline and dementia, while social, physical and mentally stimulating activities may delay dementia onset, but that these findings need confirmation by randomized controlled trials. It summarizes epidemiological evidence and does not itself show that any intervention prevents dementia.
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Early maternal support has been shown to promote specific gene expression, neurogenesis, adaptive stress responses, and larger hippocampal volumes in developing animals.
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In inflamed patients, the proinflammatory cytokine IL-8 was associated with delirium, whereas in noninflamed patients, antiinflammatory cytokine IL-10 and Aβ1-42/40 were associated with delirium.
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52/100
A limited number of studies have associated adjuvant chemotherapy with structural brain changes.
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Incorporating quantitative assessment of learning ability along with vMRI or CSF biomarkers in the clinical workup of MCI can provide critical information on risk of imminent conversion to AD.
Why it matters
In people with mild cognitive impairment, combining a learning test with MRI-measured medial temporal atrophy identified those at much higher risk of converting to Alzheimer disease within three years. This is about predicting who will develop the disease, not about treating, curing, or preventing it.
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These data show an individually varying complex convergence of subclinical diseases in the brain of older CN adults.
Why it matters
In 424 cognitively normal adults who had brain autopsies, 47% had moderate or frequent neuritic plaque density and 33% had cerebral microinfarcts. This shows that Alzheimer's-related brain changes and other lesions are common in people who were cognitively normal, and the burden varied widely between individuals.
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This article is a report on a study of the multidimensional predictors of caregiver burden in caregivers of individuals with dementia using nationally representative data.
Why it matters
In a 2003 telephone survey of dementia caregivers in seven US states (weighted n = 302), disease-related factors — chiefly how impaired the person with dementia was in daily function — were the strongest predictors of caregiver burden, explaining 16% of it, ahead of caregiver demographics and caregiving circumstances. The authors suggest that nursing and community services aimed at maintaining the person's functional abilities could ease burden for both, but this one-time survey shows an association and did not test any service.
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Self-efficacy is the belief that one can perform a specific task or behaviour and is a modifiable attribute which has been shown to influence health behaviours.
Why it matters
This study of 84 patient/caregiver dyads examined whether caregivers' self-efficacy for managing dementia-related tasks was related to their burden and depression. It addresses caregiver well-being, not treating, curing, or preventing Alzheimer's disease in patients.
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52/100
The Mediterranean dietary pattern as captured by the MedDiet scoring system may reduce the rate of cognitive decline with older age.
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The Short FES-I is a valid measure to assess fear of falling in frail older adults with and without cognitive impairment, yet it may show floor effects in higher functioning older people.
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52/100
Vascular cognitive impairment (VCI) encompasses vascular dementia and is the second most common cause of dementing illness after Alzheimer's disease.
Why it matters
This systematic review related cognitive and neuropathological features of experimental models to clinical vascular cognitive impairment, extracting data from 107 studies covering 16 models. It is a review of animal and experimental models and does not test a treatment, cure, or prevention in people.
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Some patients receiving oral anticoagulation therapy are more challenging to maintain within the therapeutic range than others.
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The following strategies helped with implementation of decisions: introducing change slowly; organising legal changes for the carer as well as the patient; involving a professional to persuade the patient to accept services; and emphasising that services optimised, not impeded, independence.
Why it matters
This qualitative study identified difficult decisions family carers make for people with dementia who lack capacity, including accessing services, care homes, legal-financial matters, and non-dementia health care. It is about decision-making support and does not test any treatment, cure, or prevention for Alzheimer's disease.
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Although observational data cannot establish causality, our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that decreasing cardiac function, even at normal cardiac index levels, is associated with accelerated brain aging.
Why it matters
In 1504 Framingham participants without dementia, lower cardiac index was linked to smaller total brain volume, larger lateral ventricles, and slower information processing speed. The authors state that observational data cannot establish causality, so this does not show that improving cardiac function prevents Alzheimer disease.
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A diagnosis of dementia is devastating at any age but diagnosis in younger patients presents a particular challenge.
Why it matters
This review states that diagnosing young-onset dementia is particularly challenging because the differential diagnosis is broad, late presentation of metabolic disease is common, and the burden of inherited dementia is higher than in late-onset dementia, and that many young-onset dementias are treatable. It also notes that identifying causative genes for inherited degenerative dementias has increased understanding of the molecular pathology, offering potential for future treatments tailored to a specific diagnosis.
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Overall burden was greater among adult-child caregivers, especially those who lived with the patient and who had other family duties.
Why it matters
In 251 families seen at a memory clinic in Girona, Spain, adult children caring for a parent with Alzheimer's reported more burden than spouses did, "especially those who lived with the patient and who had other family duties"; burden was strongly correlated with the caregiver's mental health, and guilt was linked to not living with the patient. The authors suggest spouses see care as part of marriage while for adult children it is "an important change in their lifestyle", a hypothesis, not a proven cause. It is a one-clinic, one-time-point snapshot of caregiver experience and says nothing about treating or preventing the disease.
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Callosal changes are already present in patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and mild Alzheimer disease (AD).
Why it matters
In this study, patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment already showed reduced white matter density in the anterior corpus callosum, while diffusion measures did not differ from controls. Patients with mild Alzheimer disease showed changes in both anterior and posterior corpus callosum regions, suggesting callosal changes appear early.
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Caregiver characteristics rather than objective care needs of the patients tend to be responsible for the onset of depression.
Why it matters
This 2010 systematic review reports that about one in three people caring for an older relative with dementia become depressed, more often than people caring for someone with another chronic illness. It focused on depression because that is, in the authors' words, "the main reason for caregivers to abandon home care", and it found that the caregiver's own characteristics, more than the patient's care needs, "tend to be responsible" for its onset. It is about caregivers' mental health and does not test any treatment for dementia or for caregiver depression.
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Olive oil (OO) is the most representative food of the traditional Mediterranean Diet (MedDiet).
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Diffusion tensor MRI-based tractography was used to investigate white matter (WM) changes in the major limbic (i.e., fornix and cingulum) and cortico-cortical association pathways [i.e., the uncinate fasciculus, the inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus, the inferior longitudinal fasciculus (ILF), the superior longitudinal fasciculus, and the corpus callosum] in 25 Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients, 19 amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) patients, and 15 healthy controls (HC).
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Smaller hippocampal volume in adolescents at high risk for depression suggests that it may be a vulnerability marker for the illness.
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Deterioration of the hippocampus occurs in elderly individuals with and without dementia, yet individual variation exists in the degree and rate of hippocampal decay.
Why it matters
In 165 older adults without dementia, those with higher aerobic fitness had larger left and right hippocampi (a memory region that shrinks with age), after accounting for age, sex and education, and both fitness and hippocampal size went with better spatial memory. Hippocampal size partly explained the fitness–memory link in exploratory analyses. This compares people at one point in time, so it shows an association; it does not show that exercise enlarges the hippocampus or prevents dementia.
From across this topic
9 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 9. The same 9 appear here every time.
- Dementia risk after spontaneous intracerebral haemorrhage: a prospective cohort study
- Association between acute care and critical illness hospitalization and cognitive function in older adults
- Dementia in Latin America: Paving the way toward a regional action plan
- Place of death in patients with dementia and the association with comorbidities: a retrospective population-based observational study in Germany
- Role of PCPs in diagnosing dementia in traditional Medicare and Medicare Advantage
- Depressive symptoms and cognitive decline in late life: a prospective epidemiological study
- A lifespan perspective on cognitive reserve and risk for dementia
- Using real world data to visualize longitudinal modifiable dementia risk factors in the community through an online interactive map
- MIND and Mediterranean Diets Associated with Later Onset of Parkinson's Disease