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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Cognitive assessment is a basic element for dementia diagnosis.
Why it matters
This study reports normative cognitive test values by age, sex and education from surveys in Latin America, India and China, finding that older people and those with less education performed worse. It is about test norms and does not test any treatment, cure or prevention.
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Cognitive impairment (CI) and dementia are frequent and debilitating features associated with Parkinson's disease (PD).
Why it matters
This review discusses tools for diagnosing and assessing cognitive impairment in Parkinson's disease and notes that normative data for commonly used scales are incomplete in this population. It is about assessment tools, not about treating, curing or preventing Alzheimer's disease.
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Thirty-four percent of MCI patients and over 70% of patients with MBI developed dementia (log-rank p = .011).
Why it matters
In this cohort of 358 patients, over 70% of those with mild behavioral impairment developed dementia, a higher proportion than among those with mild cognitive impairment. The findings are about risk and early detection, not about any proven treatment, cure, or prevention.
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46/100
Understanding preclinical transitions to impairment in cognitive abilities associated with risks for functional difficulty and dementia.
Why it matters
This observational study of initially high-functioning women aged 70-80 characterized 9-year declines and transitions to impairment across cognitive domains. The provided text does not report the results, so it is unclear which cognitive abilities declined first.
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Previous studies have suggested that 4 latent constructs (depressed affect, well-being, interpersonal problems, somatic symptoms) underlie the item responses on the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression (CES-D) Scale.
Why it matters
This study examined the four-factor structure of depressive symptoms on the CES-D scale in dementia caregivers and found race differences on three of the four factors. It concerns caregiver depression measurement, not the treatment, cure, or prevention of Alzheimer's disease.
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Future educational supports for GPs need to be developed which concentrate on these areas.
Why it matters
General practitioners in Ireland reported blaming themselves for late dementia diagnosis and said stigma, long waits, and poor rural access to scans and specialists were obstacles. This points to training and better access to diagnostic services as practical needs, not to any new treatment or cure.
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From a clinical perspective, these data further support the rationale for physicians to provide effective management of CVD risk factors and for patients to be compliant with such recommendations to possibly prevent cognitive decline/dementia.
Why it matters
This review reports that lifestyle cardiovascular risk factors such as obesity, lack of exercise, and smoking are associated with increased risk of cognitive decline and dementia, and that managing these factors may prevent cognitive decline. It notes that randomized trials of antihypertensives suggest such therapy may reduce cognitive decline risk, with limited data suggesting benefit in Alzheimer's disease.
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The Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) is a brief cognitive screening tool with high sensitivity for screening patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI).
Why it matters
This study validated the Korean version of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment for screening mild cognitive impairment in elderly outpatients. It concerns screening and diagnosis, not the treatment, cure or prevention of Alzheimer's disease.
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46/100
The high burden of cognitive impairment in hemodialysis and chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients has only recently become recognized.
Why it matters
Severe cognitive impairment or dementia in hemodialysis patients is linked to about a twofold increased risk of both mortality and dialysis withdrawal. Predialysis cognitive screening could give critical information about the benefits versus risks of receiving dialysis.
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The navigation disability in Alzheimer disease and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) involves a selective impairment of spatial cognition and is associated with atrophy of the right-lateralized navigation network.
Why it matters
In 13 mild Alzheimer and 21 mild cognitive impairment patients compared with 24 controls, patients could recognize landmarks but not locate them on maps or recall their order, and those who got lost had lower right posterior hippocampal and parietal volumes. This describes navigation problems and their brain correlates, not a treatment.
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The burden associated with BPSD is different for each symptom and does not always depend on frequency and severity of BPSD.
Why it matters
In 67 people with dementia living in the community, the burden on caregivers differed by symptom and did not always depend on how frequent or severe the symptom was. Symptoms such as agitation/aggression and irritability/lability may affect caregivers significantly even when their frequency and severity are not high.
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Estimates suggest that there are more than 10 million adult caregivers of persons with dementia, two-thirds of who experience some form of sleep disturbance during the course of their caregiving career.
Why it matters
This review describes three main contributors to sleep problems in dementia caregivers: disrupted sleep routines, burden and depression, and physical health. It offers no new treatment tested in patients, only recommendations for clinicians to detect and address these factors.
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The preliminary findings from this study support the possibility that aerobic fitness is positively associated with the memory performance of those individuals at most genetic risk for Alzheimer disease.
Why it matters
In cognitively normal older women, higher aerobic fitness was linked to better performance on some memory and attention tests among APOE epsilon4 homozygotes. The authors call these preliminary findings, and the study does not show that exercise prevents Alzheimer disease.
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46/100
DEMQOL and DEMQOL-Proxy show psychometric properties that are comparable with the best available dementia-specific measures of HRQL.
Why it matters
This paper built DEMQOL, a 28-item questionnaire answered by the person with dementia, and DEMQOL-Proxy, a 31-item version answered by a caregiver, to measure health-related quality of life, and recommends using them together. The authors report the self-report version as reliable with moderate validity in mild-to-moderate dementia, and the proxy version as acceptable with moderate validity up to severe dementia. They say the results still need confirming in independent samples and that whether scores pick up change over time was not tested, so it is a measurement tool, not evidence that any treatment works.
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46/100
Ageing causes changes to the brain size, vasculature, and cognition.
Why it matters
This review reports that brain shrinkage, memory impairment and dementia all rise with age, and that protective factors reducing cardiovascular risk such as regular exercise, a healthy diet and low to moderate alcohol intake seem to aid the ageing brain. It suggests that a healthy life both physically and mentally may be the best defence against the changes of an ageing brain, with additional measures to prevent cardiovascular disease possibly also important.
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Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) was considered to be an uncommon cause of dementia until improved neuropathological staining methods for ubiquitin were developed in the late 1980's. Subsequent recognition that 10-15% of dementia cases in older people were associated with Lewy body pathology led to the publication in 1996 of Consensus clinical and pathological diagnostic criteria for the disorder.
Why it matters
These consensus guidelines describe how to diagnose dementia with Lewy bodies clinically and pathologically and note that it is a potentially treatable neurodegenerative disorder. They are about improving recognition and management of Lewy body dementia, not about treating, curing, or preventing Alzheimer's disease.
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Study objectives We conducted the present study to determine whether psychiatric disorders are commonly associated with sleep apnea in Veterans Health Administration beneficiaries.
Why it matters
This study found that sleep apnea in veterans was associated with a higher prevalence of psychiatric conditions such as depression and anxiety. It does not address treating, curing, or preventing Alzheimer's disease.
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Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) has been considered a transitional state between normal aging and dementia, characterised by memory impairment but normal general cognitive functioning.
Why it matters
This study examined which neuropsychological tests best distinguish 112 people with mild cognitive impairment from 35 normal controls. It is about characterizing and detecting mild cognitive impairment, not about treating, curing, or preventing Alzheimer's disease.
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Although there may be some mild functional changes associated particularly with the MCI-memory impaired subtype, individuals with MCI do not appear to under-report their functional status as can often been seen in persons with dementia.
Why it matters
This study found that people with dementia overestimated their everyday functioning compared with reports from caregivers, while people with mild cognitive impairment did not show this discrepancy. This is about how well people recognize their own difficulties, not about treating, curing, or preventing Alzheimer's disease.
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46/100
Health-related quality of life (HR-QOL) scales are particularly important in older people as global outcome measures for interventions.
Why it matters
This study examined whether a quality-of-life scale can be used in people with severe Alzheimer's disease by looking at their ability to report on their own quality of life. It is about measuring quality of life, not about treating, curing, or preventing the disease.
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The prevalence of comorbidities and functional impairment among elderly patients may enhance the risk of operation-related complications, but the importance of these conditions in elderly patients undergoing thoracic surgery remains unclear.
Why it matters
This study looked at whether a full geriatric assessment before chest surgery could predict complications in patients aged 60 and older. It does not test any treatment, cure, or prevention for Alzheimer's disease.
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The burden perceived by caregivers of patients with dementia is a fundamental prognostic aspect in the history of the disease.
Why it matters
This cross-sectional study of 419 patients with dementia and their caregivers in 16 Italian geriatric centers examined the internal consistency of the Caregiver Burden Inventory and how patient and caregiver characteristics influenced its dimensions. The provided text does not report the results, so it is unclear how well the scale performed or what factors affected caregiver burden.
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We estimated average per patient direct, indirect and total costs for the 6-month observation period.
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Improving transportation access and diabetes care may be important targets for enhancing mobility and reducing racial disparities in mobility.
Why it matters
This study found that older African Americans had lower baseline mobility than whites, but declines over 18 months were more likely in whites. It does not test any dementia treatment or prevention.
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Light-to-moderate alcohol intake is associated with a lower prevalence of vascular brain findings and, in APOE epsilon4 carriers, hippocampal and amygdalar atrophy on MRI.
Why it matters
This observational study found that people who drank light to moderate amounts of alcohol had less severe white matter lesions and brain infarcts on MRI than abstainers or heavy drinkers. It does not show that drinking alcohol prevents or treats Alzheimer's disease, and the findings are associations, not proof of cause and effect.
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.
- Physician-Related Gaps in Hospice Referral for Patients with Advanced Dementia
- Finding the imposter: brain connectivity of lesions causing delusional misidentifications
- Vitamin D deficiency is associated with low mood and worse cognitive performance in older adults
- From FINGER to World-Wide FINGERS - multidomain interventions for risk reduction and prevention of dementia
- Dietary Patterns and Risk of Dementia: a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Cohort Studies
- The problems of vitamin d insufficiency in older people
- Annual Wellness Visits and Timing of Advance Care Planning Among Medicare Beneficiaries With Cognitive Impairment
- Effects of Cognitive Training on Cognition and Quality of Life of Older Persons with Dementia
- Enhancing Cognitive Functioning in Dementia Through Art Therapy: A Randomized Trial Based on the Expressive Therapies Continuum (ETC) Framework (Améliorer le fonctionnement cognitif chez les personnes atteintes de démence par l’art-thérapie : Un essai randomisé fondé sur le Continuum des thérapies expressives [CTE])
- Comparison of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment and the Mini‐Mental State Examination in community‐dwelling very old Blacks/African Americans