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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In recent decades, an increasing body of research has highlighted significant scientific evidence linking adherence to the Mediterranean diet with a reduced risk of chronic diseases.
Why it matters
This paper presents an updated Mediterranean diet pyramid from the Italian Society of Human Nutrition, noting evidence linking the diet to reduced risk of chronic diseases. It does not test any intervention for Alzheimer's disease, so it cannot show that this diet prevents or treats dementia.
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The highest annual increase in age-standardized incidence was observed among women aged 40-49 who were overweight (AAPC 4.0%, 95% CI 0.5-7.7%), currently smoking (AAPC 3.3%, 95% CI 0.1-6.6%) or moderately physically active (AAPC 2.9%, 95% CI 0.3-5.6%).
Why it matters
This study is about early-onset breast cancer incidence and lifestyle risk factors and contains no information on Alzheimer's disease. It reports no findings relevant to treating, curing or preventing dementia.
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Vision impairment is common among older adults and affects dementia screening assessments, which include visually presented items.
Why it matters
This study developed and validated a version of the MoCA for people with vision impairment, which showed high sensitivity and specificity for possible dementia. It is a screening tool for detecting possible dementia and does not address treating, curing or preventing the disease.
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The study cohort included 17,398 AI/AN adults aged ≥ 65 years who were dementia-free at baseline, of whom 59.8% were female.
Why it matters
Machine learning models using electronic health record data predicted which American Indian and Alaska Native older adults would develop dementia within two years with similar accuracy across three model types. These tools could help clinicians identify high-risk individuals for timely care, but the study did not test whether acting on these predictions prevents dementia.
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Fourteen articles met inclusion criteria after critical appraisal.
Why it matters
This review looked at what helps or predicts the move to hospice care for people living with dementia, and found the existing studies were limited in scope and lacked racial and ethnic diversity. It calls for larger, more diverse trials but does not test any treatment, cure or prevention.
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Female gender, older age, and lower levels of education were associated with poorer overall test scores.
Why it matters
This study provides population-based MoCA cut-off scores for Arab adults, below which further testing and clinical follow-up for mild cognitive impairment may be warranted. It concerns cognitive screening and does not test any treatment, cure or prevention.
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The direct associations identified may present potential intervention targets, while the indirect relationships suggest that other factors are influential in the pathway linking social isolation and loneliness with chronic disease and dementia.
Why it matters
In 6670 adults with a mean age of 63, higher social isolation and loneliness were associated with high-risk status on seven of nine modifiable health risk factors, and network analysis suggested that social network size and support directly influenced physical and cognitive activity, smoking, and diet. The authors state these direct associations may be potential intervention targets, but the study did not test whether changing them prevents or treats Alzheimer's disease.
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The intricate relationship between dietary habits and cognitive function is gaining increasing attention, with a focus on the gut-brain axis as a modifiable target for intervention.
Why it matters
This review suggests that diets such as the Mediterranean diet may slow cognitive decline and reduce risk of neurodegenerative disorders through reduced inflammation and oxidative stress. It notes that challenges with adherence and individual variability remain, and calls for long-term randomized trials.
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Diabetes mellitus (DM) and neurodegenerative diseases/disturbances are worldwide health problems.
Why it matters
This review describes suggested mechanisms linking diabetes mellitus to Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, including impaired insulin signaling, hyperglycemia, and hyperinsulinemia. It states that these associations and mechanisms need further investigation, so it does not establish that treating diabetes prevents or cures Alzheimer's disease.
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Implementation efforts resulted in the adoption of the Care Ecosystem at 28 health systems and eight community-based organizations, including 22 participants in Medicare's Guiding an Improved Dementia Experience (GUIDE) payment model.
Why it matters
This paper describes how the Care Ecosystem collaborative care model was adopted at 28 health systems and eight community-based organizations. It reports on spreading the model rather than testing whether it changes patient outcomes.
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Also, there are no licensed treatments specifically for VD.[3] What sets VD apart from other dementias are the following factors: The etiology of VD is clearly associated with brain tissue loss and dysfunction secondary to vascular pathophysiology in which hypertension seems to be the main reason.[4] While the exact cellular mechanisms are still not clear, it does imply that VD may potentially be largely preventable through better cardiovascular-metabolic risk modification.
Why it matters
These clinical practice guidelines note there are no licensed treatments specifically for vascular dementia and that hypertension seems to be the main reason for it, suggesting it may be largely preventable through cardiovascular-metabolic risk modification. There is only modest evidence for blood pressure interventions, so prevention through risk factor control is plausible but not proven.
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Recommendations vary by medication type and symptom severity.
Why it matters
These guidelines recommend specific medications for behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia, including risperidone for aggression and psychosis, citalopram for agitation in Alzheimer's disease, and cognitive enhancers for general symptoms. They address symptom management only, not curing or preventing Alzheimer's disease.
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48/100
Having three or more vascular risk factors (odds ratio = 1.23, 95% confidence interval [1.04-1.47]), actively smoking (odds ratio = 1.54, 95% confidence interval [1.29-1.82]), being overweight (odds ratio = 1.46, 95% confidence interval [1.22-1.74]), and having diabetes (odds ratio = 1.29, 95% confidence interval [1.09-1.53]) were associated with higher odds of subjective cognitive decline.
Why it matters
This cross-sectional study found that having three or more vascular risk factors, actively smoking, being overweight, and having diabetes were associated with higher odds of subjective cognitive decline. Any number of vascular risk factors was dose-dependently associated with higher odds of mild behavioural impairment, with active smokers and obese persons having over twice the odds.
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Multidomain interventions may benefit younger older adults or those with overly strict or lenient HbA1c control; however, these findings need confirmation in future studies.
Why it matters
In this secondary analysis of 76 participants with type 2 diabetes and mild cognitive impairment, multidomain intervention benefits were seen in the younger age group and in those with HbA1c outside the target range, but not in the older group. No significant interactions were found for memory impairment or APOE genotype, and the authors call for further study.
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Research on cognitive impairment (CI) has increasingly focused on the central nervous system, identifying numerous neuronal targets and circuits of relevance for CI pathogenesis and treatment.
Why it matters
This review looks at how damage to the cells lining the brain's small blood vessels, which form the blood-brain barrier, contributes to cognitive impairment. It covers triggers such as amyloid beta and tau build-up, reduced blood flow, high blood sugar, viral infections and inflammation, and how vessel damage leads to barrier leaks, nerve cell injury and loss of myelin. The authors present these vessel cells as possible targets for diagnosing and treating Alzheimer's and vascular dementia, but the review does not test any treatment.
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The newly diagnosed ADRD and new AChEI users cohorts included 861,727 and 395,319 patients, respectively.
Why it matters
This study describes the characteristics, other illnesses, and medications of people newly diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias using Medicare claims data. It does not test any treatment or prevention, but notes that new Alzheimer's drugs should be evaluated in broad patient groups with other conditions and medications.
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Crude new ADRD diagnosis rate ranged from 1.7 to 5.4 per 100 across HRRs.
Why it matters
Across US hospital referral regions, the rate of new dementia diagnoses varied widely, and where a person lived was linked to a two-fold difference in receiving a diagnosis. This variation was greatest among Black, Hispanic, and 66-74 year old groups.
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A collaborative dementia care program demonstrated significant financial benefit in a managed Medicare population.
Why it matters
In this pre-post analysis of 121 participants in a dementia care management program compared with 121 propensity-matched controls, participants had significantly lower total cost of care at 12 months, with mean savings of $475.80 per member per month, and fewer emergency department, outpatient, and professional visits. This shows a financial benefit of a collaborative dementia care program, not a treatment that cures or prevents Alzheimer's disease.
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Receipt of potentially burdensome hospitalizations and treatments; receipt of postdischarge home and facility care.
Why it matters
This study found that Medicare Advantage enrollees were less likely to receive potentially burdensome treatments and less likely to die in a hospital than traditional Medicare enrollees, but when hospitalized they were more likely to die in the hospital and less likely to be transferred to rehabilitative or skilled nursing facilities. Greater use of home-based care may improve quality of care but may also leave patients without adequate assistance after hospitalization.
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Maintaining driving independence is important for older adults.
Why it matters
This study found that older adults with incident cognitive impairment used fewer distinct routes to their most common destination compared to cognitively normal adults. It suggests that driving patterns might be used as a digital biomarker for early detection, but it does not address treatment, cure, or prevention.
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TBI had the highest percentage (37%) compared to other conditions, which may be attributed to the prevalent challenge of cognitive impairment in TBI in addition to physical disability.
Why it matters
This study found that delayed discharges from rehabilitation are caused by medical complications, organizational issues, and family-related factors, with traumatic brain injury having the highest percentage. Such delays can lead to poorer health outcomes, reduced quality of life, and increased healthcare costs.
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Large pre-trained models, also known as foundation models (FMs), are trained in a task-agnostic manner on large-scale data and can be adapted to a wide range of downstream tasks by fine-tuning, few-shot, or even zero-shot learning.
Why it matters
This vision paper tested existing foundation models on geospatial tasks, including US state-level and county-level dementia time series forecasting, where large language models outperformed task-specific models in zero-shot or few-shot settings. It is a methods paper about geospatial artificial intelligence and does not address treating, curing, or preventing Alzheimer's disease.
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48/100
This study projects that the total cost of caring for Americans with Alzheimer's and related dementias will grow enormously over the coming decades, driven by an aging population.
Why it matters
This modelling study projects that the total cost of caring for Americans with Alzheimer's and related dementias will grow enormously over the coming decades, driven by an aging population. It underscores how much of the true cost of dementia care is currently invisible because it is provided for free by family members.
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A communication and relationship-centered definitional framework of ACP in dementia evolved through international consensus supporting inclusiveness of persons with dementia and their family.
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We are conducting a single-blinded, National Institutes of Health stage-2, randomized clinical trial to establish the efficacy of AB versus a time-matched and dose-matched education control (Health Enhancement Program [HEP]) in improving self-reported and objective outcomes of physical, cognitive, and emotional functions in 260 participants.
Why it matters
This is a protocol describing an ongoing trial of a remote program for older adults with chronic pain and early cognitive decline, and only recruitment information is reported. No results on treating, curing or preventing Alzheimer's disease are available yet.
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.
- Brain reserve hypothesis in dementia
- A systematic review of medication non-adherence in persons with dementia or cognitive impairment
- Idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus: a systematic review of diagnosis and outcome
- The economic burden of subjective cognitive decline, mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's dementia: excess costs and associated clinical and risk factors
- An audit of palliative care in dementia
- Decomposing Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Risk and Protective Factors of Dementia in the U.S
- Association between visual hallucinations and cognitive performance in Lewy body dementia and Alzheimer's disease: A cross-sectional study
- Post‐acute care transitions during COVID ‐19: Racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic differences in older adults with Alzheimer's disease and related dementia
- Effect of Probiotic Bifidobacterium breve in Improving Cognitive Function and Preventing Brain Atrophy in Older Patients with Suspected Mild Cognitive Impairment: Results of a 24-Week Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Trial
- Does the High Prevalence of Vitamin D Deficiency in African Americans Contribute to Health Disparities?