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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Carotid atherosclerosis markers were associated with MRI indices of brain ischemia and aging and with cognitive impairment in a community-based sample of middle-aged adults.
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Based on this cohort, although CJD is the most likely cause of a rapidly progressive neurodegenerative dementia, frontotemporal lobar degeneration with motor neuron degeneration, diffuse Lewy body disease, tauopathies, and Alzheimer disease can also cause a rapidly progressive dementia.
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Delirium is a severe, acute neuropsychiatric syndrome that is highly prevalent in acute hospital populations.
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On November 8-9, 2007, a meeting entitled "Setting a Public Health Research Agenda for Down Syndrome" was held to review current knowledge, identify gaps, and develop priorities for future public health research related to Down syndrome.
Why it matters
This meeting summary lists priorities for future public health research on Down syndrome, including risk and preventive factors and better understanding of related conditions. It reports no treatment, cure, or prevention.
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47/100
The present study indicated that most individuals with the comorbidity of epilepsy and dementia have complex partial seizures that may be adequately controlled on AED therapy.
Why it matters
In this group of patients with both dementia and epilepsy, most had complex partial seizures and 79% responded well to antiepileptic drug therapy. This suggests seizures in dementia patients can often be controlled with medication, though the study was retrospective and included only 39 analyzed patients.
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In practice, knowledge and expertise are critical for effective functioning, and the available evidence suggests that older adults effectively employ specific knowledge and expertise and can gain new knowledge when it is required.
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This article outlines methodological enhancements to better evaluate treatment approaches in future registration trials and provides an algorithm for improving the treatment of these patients in nursing home and non-nursing home settings.
Why it matters
In a 2006 conference, geriatric mental health experts reviewed antipsychotics, which were being used off label for severe agitation and aggression in dementia, after the FDA issued a 2005 black box warning about "increased risk of mortality" with atypical antipsychotics in this group. The panel said problems with trial design "may have been one of the contributors" to the trials' failure to show that the drugs work, but that the safety findings "should be taken seriously" when clinicians weigh risks and benefits in a frail population and advise families. This is an expert consensus, not a new trial, and it gives no mortality figures of its own.
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These results provide new evidence of exposure-related structural abnormalities in the hippocampus and amygdala in long-term heavy cannabis users and corroborate similar findings in the animal literature.
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47/100
Cognitively normal subjects with HTN (n=19) had decreased rCBF in the putamen, globus pallidus, bilaterally, and in the left hippocampus compared with normotensives (n=22).
Why it matters
In this small study of 41 cognitively normal people, those with hypertension had decreased regional cerebral blood flow in the putamen, globus pallidus bilaterally, and left hippocampus compared with normotensives. This is a cross-sectional finding and does not show that treating hypertension prevents Alzheimer's disease.
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Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) refers to the transitional state between the cognitive changes of normal aging and very early dementia.
Why it matters
This overview describes mild cognitive impairment as a transitional state between normal aging and early dementia, with an algorithm to help clinicians identify and subclassify it. It discusses progression factors and interventions but reports no new treatment or cure, so it offers context rather than a therapy.
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More than 5 million Americans have dementia, a leading cause of death among persons older than 65 years in the United States.
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25 older individuals with MCI performed a visual scene encoding task during fMRI scanning, and were followed clinically for at least 4 years after scanning.
Why it matters
In 25 people with mild cognitive impairment, higher activity in the hippocampus during a memory task predicted later cognitive decline over at least four years. This is an early finding from a small group and does not show any treatment or way to prevent decline.
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Current evidence suggests that vascular factors, such as midlife hypertension, diabetes, and cerebrovascular disease, contribute significantly to the development of dementia and Alzheimer's disease, and that active engagement in mental, physical, and social activities may postpone the onset of dementia by providing cognitive reserve.
Why it matters
This review states that vascular factors like midlife hypertension and diabetes contribute to dementia, and that mental, physical, and social activities may postpone onset by providing cognitive reserve. It calls for intervention trials to determine to what extent such programs are effective.
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Cross-sectional studies of normal aging indicate an association between memory and hippocampal volume, and between executive functioning and subcortical-frontal circuits.
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The merit of screening for dementia and cognitive impairment has been the subject of recent debate.
Why it matters
This review identified 39 screening tests for cognitive impairment and examined the evidence for their validity in different populations. It concerns screening and diagnosis, not treating, curing, or preventing dementia.
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Older women with low estradiol levels were more likely to experience decline in global cognitive function and verbal memory, and a similar trend was observed for verbal memory in men.
Why it matters
Older women with the lowest estradiol levels were more likely to decline in global cognitive function and verbal memory over two years, with a similar trend for verbal memory in men; testosterone was not linked to decline. This supports a possible role for natural sex hormones in maintaining cognition, but it is an observational finding, not a treatment.
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Subjective memory complaints (SMCs) are common in older people and are often thought to indicate cognitive impairment.
Why it matters
This review found that subjective memory complaints were inconsistently related to current cognitive impairment but more strongly related to risk of future cognitive decline, and were consistently related to depression and some personality traits such as neuroticism. The authors conclude that the utility of subjective memory complaints in diagnosing pre-dementia states such as mild cognitive impairment is uncertain and requires further evaluation.
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Factor analyses yielded two strong and reliable factors representing underlying physical and cognitive dimensions of IADL.
Why it matters
This study tested whether a daily living skills scale measures physical and mental abilities separately in older Chinese, Malay and Indian adults in Singapore. It is about validating a measurement tool, not about treating, curing or preventing Alzheimer's disease.
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When the clinical syndrome of MCI evolves on a neurodegenerative basis, the multiple-domain type of MCI has a less favorable prognosis than the amnestic type and may represent a more advanced prodromal stage of dementia.
Why it matters
In 81 cognitively impaired but non-demented patients followed for an average of about 3.5 years, 25% of those with amnestic mild cognitive impairment, 54% with multiple-domain mild cognitive impairment, and 37.5% with single non-memory mild cognitive impairment progressed to dementia. The type of mild cognitive impairment was significantly associated with likelihood of conversion, suggesting multiple-domain cases may be a more advanced stage, but no treatment was tested.
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Patients with MCI showed no significant difference (P>.05) in the number of diffuse plaques from that in normal controls or patients with EAD.
Why it matters
In 10 patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment followed over time, the early brain changes of Alzheimer's disease were already present, with neurofibrillary tangles slightly more prominent than amyloid deposits. This supports the idea that tangles in the ventromedial temporal lobe may underlie memory decline in mild cognitive impairment, but it does not offer a treatment or cure.
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47/100
The study is a validation study of two psychogeriatric depression rating scales, The Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) and the Cornell Scale for Depression in Dementia (CSDD).
Why it matters
This study checked how well two depression rating scales, the Geriatric Depression Scale and the Cornell Scale for Depression in Dementia, detect depression in older people. It is about assessing mood in dementia care, not about treating, curing or preventing Alzheimer's disease.
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Progressive aphasia is best seen as a composite of two conditions, on both clinical and pathological levels: progressive nonfluent aphasia and semantic dementia.
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Twenty-two patients with Parkinson's disease drawn from a community-based study were followed prospectively until their deaths.
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47/100
The long-term objective of the Rush Memory and Aging Project is to identify the postmortem indices linking genetic and environmental risk factors to the development of Alzheimer's disease (AD).
Why it matters
This 2005 paper sets out how the Rush Memory and Aging Project works: older people in the Chicago area "without known dementia" agree to a clinical check every year and to organ donation at death. The aim is to find the changes seen after death that link genetic and environmental risk factors to Alzheimer's disease. From 1997 to 2005, more than 1,000 people from over 30 residential facilities joined. Their average age was 81; about a third had 12 or fewer years of schooling, a third were men and about 10% belonged to a racial or ethnic minority group. It describes who took part and reports no results about causes, treatment or prevention.
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Semantic dementia is a syndrome of progressive deterioration in semantic memory (knowledge of objects, people, concepts and words).
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 unified approach for morphometric and functional data analysis in young, old, and demented adults using automated atlas-based head size normalization: reliability and validation against manual measurement of total intracranial volume
- Reducing antipsychotic drug use in nursing homes. A controlled trial of provider education
- Prevalence of dementia and probable senile dementia of the Alzheimer type in the Framingham Study
- Relationship Between Perceived and Objective Financial Abilities Among Older Adults: Results From the Advanced Cognitive Training for Independent and Vital Elderly Cohort
- Actigraphy-estimated sleep and 24-hour activity rhythms and the risk of dementia
- Patterns and trends in antipsychotic prescribing for Parkinson disease psychosis
- Mechanisms of interventions targeting modifiable factors for dementia risk reduction
- Delirium, long-term conditions, and incident dementia in older adults admitted to hospital for emergency care in Lothian, Scotland: a population-based cohort study
- Risk of death in elderly users of conventional vs. atypical antipsychotic medications
- A voxel-based morphometry study of semantic dementia: relationship between temporal lobe atrophy and semantic memory