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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51/100
Down's syndrome is the most common genetic cause of learning difficulties, and individuals with this condition represent the largest group of people with dementia under the age of 50 years.
Why it matters
People with Down's syndrome have a high frequency of Alzheimer's pathology and a high incidence of cognitive decline and dementia, but early diagnosis remains difficult because cognitive assessment is challenging and diagnostic methods have not been fully validated in these patients. Evidence regarding the benefits of cholinesterase inhibitors and other therapeutic options to treat or delay progression is limited.
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The success rate of the pharmaceutical research and development (R&D) for dementia drugs has been abysmally low, in the last two decades.
Why it matters
This analysis reports that dementia drug development has had a very low success rate over two decades, with few pipeline drugs and reasons for early trial terminations often unreported. It identifies challenges in therapy development and does not offer a treatment, cure or prevention.
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A decline in physical and/or cognitive function is a common feature of aging, and frailty has been shown to be associated with cognitive impairment and dementia.
Why it matters
This study examined whether muscle weakness and loss of muscle mass are linked to cognitive impairment in older Taiwanese adults living in the community. It does not test any treatment, cure, or prevention for Alzheimer's disease.
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The most frequent NPS were depression (in 66% of the sample), anxiety (65%) and mental fatigue (57%).
Why it matters
In Parkinson's disease, neuropsychiatric symptoms such as depression, anxiety, and mental fatigue were common and were strongly associated with caregiver burden, especially in patients who also had dementia. This is about symptom burden and caregiving, not about treating, curing, or preventing Alzheimer's disease.
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Every year an estimated 42 million people worldwide suffer a mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI) or concussion.
Why it matters
This review reports that repetitive mild traumatic brain injury and repetitive sub-concussive head trauma have been linked to increased risk of several neurodegenerative diseases, including chronic traumatic encephalopathy. It notes that the prevalence of CTE is unknown and how much trauma is needed to produce it is unclear, so it does not establish prevention or treatment.
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Over the past 3 decades, more than 200 dementia caregiver interventions have been tested in randomized clinical trials and found to be efficacious.
Why it matters
This article reviews more than 200 tested dementia caregiver interventions and notes that few have been translated into everyday service settings, leaving them inaccessible to many family caregivers. It is about bringing caregiver support programs into practice, not about treating, curing or preventing Alzheimer's disease.
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Subjective cognitive complaints are a criterion for the diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment (MCI), despite their uncertain relationship to objective memory performance in MCI.
Why it matters
In this analysis of 448 participants with mild cognitive impairment, a cluster-derived normal subgroup of 41.3% had neuropsychological and cerebrospinal fluid biomarker profiles that did not differ from normal controls, and underestimation of cognitive problems was associated with positive cerebrospinal fluid Alzheimer's disease biomarkers and progression to dementia. The findings concern diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment, not treatment.
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The National Alzheimer's Project Act, signed into law in 2011, mandates a National Plan to Address Alzheimer's Disease that is updated annually.
Why it matters
This article reports recommendations from a conference that set research priorities and timelines for Alzheimer's disease-related dementias across five topic areas. It is a planning document and does not itself test any treatment, cure, or prevention.
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The prevalence of dementia varies substantially worldwide.
Why it matters
This review describes how dementia prevalence differs around the world and links factors such as low education and vascular risk to higher risk of Alzheimer's and vascular dementia. It describes patterns and risk factors and does not test any treatment or cure.
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Machine learning techniques have been widely used to detect morphological abnormalities from structural brain magnetic resonance imaging data and to support the diagnosis of neurological diseases such as dementia.
Why it matters
Using baseline MRI scans of 834 people from the ADNI research study, this machine-learning method told Alzheimer's patients apart from healthy controls with 89% accuracy. It was less accurate (70%) at telling which people with mild cognitive impairment would stay stable and which would progress. Both figures come from leave-one-out cross-validation within that one dataset rather than a new group of patients, and the method was reported as similar to or better than two earlier methods. It is a diagnostic-research study and does not test any treatment, cure or prevention.
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Noncognitive neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS) of dementia (aggression, agitation, depression, anxiety, delusions, hallucinations, apathy, disinhibition) affect individuals with dementia nearly universally across dementia stages and etiologies.
Why it matters
This expert panel notes that noncognitive neuropsychiatric symptoms of dementia are linked to poor outcomes for patients and caregivers, and that the FDA has not approved pharmacotherapy for these symptoms. It says nonpharmacological treatments are typically considered first line and have evidence of efficacy with limited potential for adverse effects, but their uptake in real-world settings remains inadequate.
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There is accumulating evidence that chronic dementia caregiver stress increases their vulnerability to disease and diminishes their ability to provide optimal care.
Why it matters
This review of 37 studies found that dementia caregivers showed changes in markers of dyscoagulation, inflammation, cell aging, immune function, sleep, and cognition compared with non-caregivers. It suggests chronic dementia caregiver stress increases vulnerability to disease and may diminish the ability to provide optimal care.
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Among type 2 diabetic patients followed for 10 years, African Americans and Native Americans had a 40-60% greater risk of dementia compared with Asians, and risk was intermediate for non-Hispanic whites and Latinos.
Why it matters
In 22,171 people aged 60+ with type 2 diabetes in the Kaiser Permanente Northern California registry, followed for about 10 years, 17.1% were diagnosed with dementia. Native Americans (hazard ratio 1.64) and African Americans (1.44) had the highest risk relative to Asians, with non-Hispanic whites (1.30) and Latinos (1.19) in between. The study reports that accounting for diabetes complications and neighborhood deprivation did not change these differences. It shows an association within one health system, not a cause, and tests no treatment.
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Our literature search resulted in 32 studies published until October 2012.
Why it matters
A review of 32 studies (to October 2012) found that people with dementia living in special care units had more challenging behaviour, agitation, depression and anxiety than those in traditional nursing homes, but better psychosocial functioning and quality of life, and over time less decline in daily-living activities. The authors read this mainly as a sign that "the patient characteristics in SCU and n-SCU settings … are different", so it describes who lives where rather than proving that either setting causes better or worse outcomes.
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There has been a recent upsurge of reports about applications of pattern-recognition techniques from the field of machine learning to functional MR imaging data as a diagnostic tool for systemic brain disease or psychiatric disorders.
Why it matters
This review of machine learning applied to functional MRI data for brain and psychiatric disorders concluded that most studies are explorative proof-of-concept efforts and the field is still far from real clinical application. It does not test any treatment, cure or prevention for Alzheimer's disease.
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The Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) is a large multi-center study designed to develop optimized methods for acquiring longitudinal neuroimaging, cognitive, and biomarker measures of AD progression in a large cohort of patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD), patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment, and healthy controls.
Why it matters
This analysis confirmed that the ADNI Neuropsychological Battery measures five areas of thinking: memory, language, visuospatial functioning, attention, and executive function/processing speed. It is about how cognitive tests are structured, not about treating, curing, or preventing Alzheimer's disease.
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Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) is a clinical syndrome with a heterogeneous molecular basis.
Why it matters
This review summarizes the discovery of genes and proteins involved in frontotemporal dementia, including progranulin, TDP-43 and the C9orf72 repeat expansion. It describes molecular understanding that may guide future targeted tests and therapies, but reports no treatment or cure.
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A careful clinical evaluation of sleep disorders should be performed routinely in the clinical setting of persons with cognitive decline.
Why it matters
In 431 patients from 10 Italian neurology centres, over 60% of people with mild cognitive impairment or dementia had at least one sleep disturbance, and these problems usually occurred together. People with mild cognitive impairment had the same frequency of sleep disorders as those with Alzheimer's disease; breathing problems during sleep were more frequent in vascular dementia and REM behavior disorder in Lewy body or Parkinson's dementia. The authors recommend routinely asking about sleep in anyone with cognitive decline, keeping instrumental sleep tests for selected patients. The study is a one-time snapshot and does not show that sleep problems cause dementia.
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Among 91 nondemented subjects completing neuropsychological testing (mean/SD age, 73.4/11.6 years; 44% female; 56% stroke), 39 (42%) had MCI (amnestic multiple domain=10, nonamnestic multiple domain=9, nonamnestic single domain=19, amnestic single domain=1).
Why it matters
This study compared the MoCA, ACE-R, and MMSE against a full neuropsychological battery in 91 people after transient ischemic attack or stroke. It found the MoCA and ACE-R had good sensitivity for mild cognitive impairment, which concerns detection rather than treatment, cure, or prevention.
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51/100
During the study period, the risk of mortality in hip fracture patients was 3-fold higher than that in the general population and included every major cause of death.
Why it matters
After a hip fracture, older patients had high death rates, and dementia and Alzheimer's disease were among the most common causes of death. This describes outcomes after hip fracture and does not test any treatment or prevention for dementia.
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Patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) can develop mild cognitive impairment (PD-MCI), frequently progressing to dementia (PDD).
Why it matters
This study found reduced fractional anisotropy in major white matter tracts in people with Parkinson's disease and mild cognitive impairment, Parkinson's disease dementia, and dementia with Lewy bodies, and these values correlated with cognitive test scores. It concerns Parkinson's disease and related dementias rather than Alzheimer's disease, and it does not test any treatment.
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51/100
Among patients with ischemic stroke, factors identifiable within hours of hospital presentation predicted mortality risk at 30 days and 1 year.
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Huntington disease (HD) is a rare neurodegenerative disorder of the central nervous system characterized by unwanted choreatic movements, behavioral and psychiatric disturbances and dementia.
Why it matters
This clinical review describes Huntington's disease, a rare inherited neurodegenerative disorder that causes movement problems, psychiatric symptoms and dementia, and it is not Alzheimer's disease. It reports no treatment that cures or prevents the disease.
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Alzheimer's Disease (AD) and other neurodegenerative diseases affect over 20 million people worldwide, and this number is projected to significantly increase in the coming decades.
Why it matters
A machine learning method that combines multiple types of brain imaging showed differences between people with mild cognitive impairment who progressed and those who did not. This approach may improve prediction of progression, but it is a technical analysis and does not provide a treatment.
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51/100
Despite the growing body of evidence over the 20 years of this review, and the widespread interest in family dementia caregiving generally, much of the research exploring family caregiving in rural areas focuses on the experience, use and barriers to formal service provision.
Why it matters
This review examined 26 studies on informal and family dementia caregiving in rural and remote settings, covering service use, carer experience, support and education, and rural perceptions of dementia. It identifies gaps in knowledge about caregiving and does not address treating, curing, or preventing Alzheimer's disease.
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.
- Left Ventricular Injury Detected by Cardiac MRI and Incident Ischemic Stroke and Dementia Risk
- The experience of psychological distress in family caregivers of people with dementia: A cross-sectional study
- Association of Serum Vitamin D with the Risk of Incident Dementia and Subclinical Indices of Brain Aging: The Framingham Heart Study
- Course of illness, hippocampal function, and hippocampal volume in major depression
- Secondary causes among adult patients presenting with first-episode psychosis to acute medical settings in Hong Kong: A 10-Year retrospective study
- Clinical characteristics in early Parkinson's disease in a central California population-based study
- Impaired Quality of Life and Need for Palliative Care in a German Cohort of Advanced Parkinson's Disease Patients
- Care management improves total cost of care for patients with dementia
- Chronotype as a potential risk factor for cognitive decline: The mediating role of sleep quality and health behaviours in a 10-year follow-up study