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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Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a debilitating condition associated with mild to moderate cognitive impairment and with a prevalence rate of up to 22% in veterans.
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The HBA-CT program improves cognitive, mood, and sleep functions in older adults 'at risk' of dementia, and therefore offers promise as a secondary prevention strategy.
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This study gives evidence that cognitive training may be effective to prevent cognitive decline and onset of MCI in PD patients.
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Of these, 4361 (8.4%) developed dementia compared with 6610 patients with NTT (5.9%) (P Conclusions and relevance Among patients evaluated in the ED or inpatient settings, those with moderate to severe TBI at 55 years or older or mild TBI at 65 years or older had an increased risk of developing dementia.
Why it matters
This cohort study found that adults aged 55 and older with moderate to severe traumatic brain injury, or those 65 and older with mild traumatic brain injury, had an increased risk of developing dementia compared with people who had non-brain trauma. It is about risk after injury, not about treating or preventing Alzheimer's disease.
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Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) increases dementia risk with no pharmacologic treatment available.
Why it matters
This randomized, double-blind, double-sham controlled trial tested resistance training and/or cognitive training in adults with mild cognitive impairment. The record does not state the trial's results, so no conclusion about these interventions can be drawn from this text.
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The traditional Mediterranean diet (MedDiet) has shown beneficial effects on cognitive decline.
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Purpose of the study The purpose of this study was to test the impact of Function-Focused Care for the Cognitively Impaired Intervention on nursing home residents with dementia and the nursing assistants who care for them.
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Sleep fragmentation in older adults is associated with incident AD and the rate of cognitive decline.
Why it matters
In this cohort of older adults without dementia, more fragmented sleep was associated with a higher risk of developing Alzheimer's disease and with cognitive decline. The study reports an association only and does not show that changing sleep prevents Alzheimer's disease.
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Main results Nine studies (from eight published reports) of 5149 individuals with mild cognitive impairment (however defined) were included in the review.
Why it matters
This review of nine studies found cholinesterase inhibitors had essentially no effect on cognitive test scores in people with mild cognitive impairment and were linked to significantly more adverse events. The weak evidence of reduced conversion was outweighed by the increased risk of side effects.
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Donepezil is safe and well tolerated.
Why it matters
In this 12-week randomized trial of 140 patients with dementia with Lewy bodies, donepezil at 5 and 10 mg/day improved cognition, behavior, and global function and reduced caregiver burden at the highest dose. The trial was exploratory and short-term, so it does not show a cure or long-term benefit.
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12,887 participants were interviewed at baseline. 11,718 were free of dementia, of whom 8137 (69%) were reinterviewed, contributing 34,718 person-years of follow-up.
Why it matters
Following 8,137 older adults in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Peru, Mexico and China for 3–5 years, this cohort found new dementia cases at 18·2–30·4 per 1000 person-years using 10/66 criteria, 1·4–2·7 times the DSM-IV rate. People who already had dementia at the start had a 1·56–5·69 times higher risk of death. The authors say their findings support the cognitive reserve idea: in these countries, as in high-income ones, education and literacy went with a lower chance of developing dementia. This was an observational study and tested no treatment or prevention.
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The total cost of disorders of the brain was estimated at €798 billion in 2010.
Why it matters
This study estimated the total cost of brain disorders in Europe, including dementia. It provides economic information for planning but does not test any treatment or prevention for Alzheimer's.
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72/100
Our aim was to test the association of vascular risk factor exposure in midlife with progression of MRI markers of brain aging and measures of cognitive decline.
Why it matters
In 1,352 people without dementia from the Framingham Offspring study, those with high blood pressure, diabetes, smoking or obesity in midlife showed faster growth of white-matter damage on MRI, faster shrinkage of the whole brain and hippocampus, and faster decline on a test of executive function about ten years later. These are associations from an observational study that measured brain scans and test scores, not dementia diagnoses, and it does not show that treating these risk factors prevents Alzheimer's disease.
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The relationship between body mass index (BMI) (in midlife and late-life) and dementia was investigated in meta-analyses of 16 articles reporting on 15 prospective studies.
Why it matters
Pooling 15 prospective studies (about 15,000–30,000 people per outcome, followed for 3 to 36 years), this meta-analysis found that people who were obese in midlife had about twice the risk of Alzheimer's disease as people of normal weight (relative risk 2.04), and those who were overweight about 1.35 times the risk. Being underweight in midlife was also linked to higher Alzheimer's risk (1.96), while BMI measured in late life was not associated with dementia. These are associations from observational studies, not proof that changing weight changes risk, and the authors note that the small number of studies in each pooled analysis limits how far the findings generalise.
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Among community-living dyads, a nonpharmacologic biobehavioral environmental intervention compared with control resulted in better outcomes for COPE dyads at 4 months.
Why it matters
A nonpharmacologic biobehavioral environmental intervention improved functional independence and engagement in people with dementia at 4 months compared with controls. This is a randomized controlled trial, but it addresses daily functioning and well-being rather than curing or preventing Alzheimer's disease.
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Patients with MCI converted to AD at an annual rate of 17.2%.
Why it matters
In 85 people with memory-type mild cognitive impairment from the ADNI study, followed for about two years, 17.2% a year progressed to Alzheimer's disease. Those with abnormal results on both an FDG-PET brain scan and a memory test were 11.7 times more likely to progress than those normal on both. A spinal-fluid tau/amyloid ratio predicted later cognitive decline instead. This is a small prognostic study that compares tests; it does not test a treatment, and the summary does not report how the gene APOE ε4 or hippocampal size performed.
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This systematic literature review addressed the efficacy of 15 cognitive intervention programs that have been tested in individuals presenting with mild cognitive impairment of the amnestic type (MCI-A) possibly at risk to progress toward dementia.
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15 care sites with 289 residents were randomly assigned.
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A statistically significant age-adjusted association was observed between the A1C level and the score on all four cognitive tests.
Why it matters
In people with diabetes, higher A1C levels were linked to lower scores on all four cognitive tests, suggesting worse blood sugar control goes with worse thinking. Whether lowering glucose actually improves cognitive function was not answered here and is being tested in the ongoing trial.
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The risk of dementia or MCI at follow-up is almost doubled in elderly hip surgery patients with postoperative delirium compared with at-risk patients without delirium.
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Frequent consumption of fruits and vegetables, fish, and omega-3 rich oils may decrease the risk of dementia and Alzheimer disease, especially among ApoE epsilon 4 noncarriers.
Why it matters
In this cohort, eating fruits and vegetables daily was linked to a lower risk of dementia, and eating fish weekly was linked to lower Alzheimer's risk only in people who do not carry the ApoE epsilon 4 gene. Regular use of omega-6 rich oils without enough omega-3 oils or fish was linked to a higher dementia risk.
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Atypical antipsychotic use is associated with an increased risk for death compared with nonuse among older adults with dementia.
Why it matters
In older adults with dementia, starting atypical antipsychotic drugs was linked to a small but significant increase in the risk of death within 30 days. This is a safety concern about symptom-management drugs and does not offer a treatment or cure for dementia itself.
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72/100
Patients taking memantine were slightly less likely to develop agitation (134/1739, 7.7% versus 175/1873, 9.3% OR 0.78, 95% CI 0.61 to 0.99, P = 0.04).
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However, the advisory did not apply to conventional antipsychotic medications; the risk of death with these older agents is not known.
Why it matters
In this study of elderly patients, conventional antipsychotic medications were linked to a higher risk of death than atypical antipsychotics. The authors state that if confirmed, conventional drugs should not be used to replace atypical agents in elderly patients.
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Older adults with CVD other than stroke had a higher risk of dementia and AD than did those without CVD.
Why it matters
In 3,602 older adults from four U.S. communities who had no dementia and no stroke, those who already had heart or artery disease developed Alzheimer's disease more often over about 5 years: 34.4 versus 22.2 cases per 1,000 person-years (adjusted hazard ratio 1.3, 95% CI 1.0-1.7). The risk was highest in people with peripheral arterial disease (adjusted hazard ratio 2.4, 95% CI 1.4-4.2), and it rose with the extent of vascular disease. This is an association from an observational study; the authors say it suggests that widespread hardening of the arteries is a risk factor for Alzheimer's, not that treating it lowers dementia risk.
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.
- A population-based retrospective cohort study of end-of-life emergency department visits by people with dementia: multilevel modelling of individual- and service-level factors using linked data
- The prevalence of dementia in a statewide sample of new nursing home admissions aged 65 and older: diagnosis by expert panel. Epidemiology of Dementia in Nursing Homes Research Group
- A chart-based method for identification of delirium: validation compared with interviewer ratings using the confusion assessment method
- Statins, risk of dementia, and cognitive function: secondary analysis of the ginkgo evaluation of memory study
- Advance care planning for people with dementia
- Is personality associated with dementia risk? A meta-analytic investigation
- Explainable and externally validated machine learning for neurocognitive diagnosis via ECGs
- Frequency and clinical determinants of dementia after ischemic stroke
- Low-intensity daily walking activity is associated with hippocampal volume in older adults
- Preoperative Cognitive Performance and Postoperative Delirium Are Independently Associated With Future Dementia in Older People Who Have Undergone Cardiac Surgery: A Longitudinal Cohort Study