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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Why it matters
A voxel-based morphometric study of ageing in 465 normal adult human brains. It is not a study of Alzheimer's disease.
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Cholinesterase inhibitors benefit patients with AD (Standard), although the average benefit appears small; vitamin E likely delays the time to clinical worsening (Guideline); selegiline, other antioxidants, anti-inflammatories, and estrogen require further study.
Why it matters
This retired 2001 American Academy of Neurology guideline, a literature review and not a trial, made recommendations for managing dementia. It judged that cholinesterase inhibitors benefit people with Alzheimer's "although the average benefit appears small", that vitamin E "likely delays the time to clinical worsening", and that antipsychotics help agitation or psychosis only "where environmental manipulation fails". For families, it recommended that education programmes be offered to caregivers "to improve caregiver satisfaction and to delay the time to nursing home placement". Because it is retired, it is a historical reference, not current treatment advice.
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59/100
This study tested role-training intervention as a way to help family caregivers appreciate and assume a more clinical belief set about caregiving and thereby ameliorate the adverse outcomes associated with caregiving.
Why it matters
In 94 caregiver/care receiver dyads, a role-training intervention improved caregivers' beliefs about caregiving and their reaction to behaviour, and treatment group caregivers showed improvements in depression and burden compared with controls. The results suggest benefits of providing information, linkage, and role coaching to dementia family caregivers.
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The prevalence and the degree of cerebral white matter lesions increased with age.
Why it matters
In 1,077 randomly sampled people aged 60–90 who had MRI scans, only 5% had no white matter lesions in either brain region rated, and the share with lesions rose with age in both men and women. Women tended to have more lesions than men, but the record states that none of these sex differences were statistically significant. The study measured lesions at one point in time and did not measure dementia; the authors only suggest the sex pattern "may underlie" higher dementia incidence in women.
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Ischemic vascular dementia (IVD) is a relatively uncommon entity, in the course of which multiple ischemic brain lesions result in progressive cognitive and memory impairment.
Why it matters
In autopsies of 20 people aged 68–92 who were followed for ischemic vascular dementia, the most common findings were small strokes (lacunar infarcts and microinfarcts, each in over half of brains). Larger cystic infarcts appeared in only 5, and 11 of 20 showed old damage to the hippocampus, a memory region. The authors call this kind of dementia "relatively uncommon," note that one patient also had severe Alzheimer's changes, and propose a way to score vascular brain damage. This was a small series with no comparison group, so it describes these brains and does not establish cause.
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59/100
Moderate and severe head injuries in young men may be associated with increased risk of AD and other dementias in late life.
Why it matters
In this cohort of World War II veterans, moderate head injury was associated with increased risk of Alzheimer's disease and severe head injury with a larger increase, while results for mild head injury were inconclusive. This links early adult head injury to later dementia risk but does not show how to treat, cure or prevent Alzheimer's disease.
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This intent-to-treat (ITT) analysis was performed to provide a realistic image of the efficacy that could be expected after 26 weeks treatment with a 120-mg dose (40 mg t.i.d.) of EGb 761 (EGb).
Why it matters
This 26-week analysis came from a 52-week double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of the ginkgo biloba extract EGb 761 in people with Alzheimer's disease or multi-infarct dementia. It reports results on cognitive and global outcome measures over 26 weeks, not a cure or prevention.
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Eight out of 15 patients completed the entire study.
Why it matters
In this small crossover trial, morning bright light therapy helped patients with dementia sleep more at night but did not improve agitated behaviors. This means bright light may help sleep but not agitation in this setting.
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(1) The incidence of dementia increases with age, even in the oldest age groups; (2) women have a higher risk of developing dementia than men, especially at very old ages; (3) this pattern is mainly due to the age and gender distribution of Alzheimer's disease, rather than vascular dementia.
Why it matters
In a Stockholm cohort of 1,473 dementia-free people aged 75 and over, followed for about three years (including through records for those who died), 148 developed dementia. Rates rose with age, most steeply in women: from 19.6 to 86.7 per 1,000 person-years between ages 75–79 and 90+, against 12.4 and 15.0 in men, and the age-adjusted odds ratio for women was 1.9 for dementia and 3.1 for Alzheimer's disease. The authors attribute the gap mainly to Alzheimer's disease rather than vascular dementia. This describes who develops dementia, not why, and it does not test any treatment or prevention.
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This study demonstrates the acceptability and effectiveness of exercise on neurobehavioral function, even in older people more than 75 years of age.
Why it matters
In this small randomized trial of 42 healthy volunteers over age 75, exercise showed effects on the Up & Go test and Functional Reach. The study did not report effects on the cognitive test measures, so it does not show that exercise improves cognition or prevents dementia.
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We report the clinical, neuroimaging, and neuropathologic features of progressive nonfluent aphasia (PNFA), a rare neurodegenerative syndrome most notable for its distinct language disturbance.
Why it matters
This small longitudinal study of 3 patients describes progressive nonfluent aphasia, a rare syndrome with declining speech and language, and found brain pathology most consistent with dementia lacking distinctive histology. It provides descriptive information about this syndrome but does not test any treatment, cure, or prevention for Alzheimer's disease.
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Previous research indicates that persons assigning values to ranges of health states consider some states to be worse than death.
Why it matters
This study found that people can and do rate some health states, such as dementia and coma, as equal to or worse than death, using several measurement methods. However, most nursing home residents were unable to complete or understand the measurement tasks.
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Why it matters
Describes the Clinical Dementia Rating, a scale for grading how severe a person's dementia is. It exists to measure and stage severity, and does not itself treat or cure Alzheimer's disease.
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In a longitudinal study of senile dementia and healthy aging, the occurrence of serious falls was examined in participants with senile dementia of the Alzheimer's type (SDAT) (n = 44) and in cognitively healthy elderly control participants (n = 56) over a 4-year period.
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Cross-sectional analysis of CBF values was carried out among 668 volunteers and patients.
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Stroke is associated with a higher LBD risk.
Why it matters
In a Medicare case-control study of 75,847 incident Lewy body dementia cases and 379,235 controls, stroke was positively associated with Lewy body dementia risk while the other seven cardiometabolic diseases examined were inversely associated. Geographic variation in these associations was observed across the United States.
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baseline age = 79.6 years, 60.6% female.
Why it matters
In people with essential tremor, the occurrence of mild cognitive impairment and dementia was higher than in the general population but lower than in Parkinson's disease. This documents the cognitive trajectory in essential tremor, which may help with monitoring and planning care.
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If a substantial synergetic effect is detected, it may lead to the use of more widespread concurrent physical and cognitive training and the potential development of methods to make concurrent training practical.
Why it matters
This is a protocol for a randomized controlled trial that will test physical activity and cognitive training in older adults. No results are available yet, so it cannot yet say whether these interventions mitigate cognitive decline.
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Antihypertensive treatment significantly improved cognitive function scores (SMD, 0.06; 95% CI, 0.03-0.09; P Conclusions and implications Antihypertensive therapy significantly improves cognitive function with moderate certainty evidence, supporting its use for cognitive protection in older adults with hypertension.
Why it matters
Pooling four randomized trials of older adults with high blood pressure, antihypertensive treatment improved cognitive function scores with moderate-certainty evidence. The analysis supports using antihypertensives for cognitive protection, but the authors note the drug-class network was sparse and call for optimizing regimens rather than naming one best class.
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58/100
Hearing impairment is implicated as a risk factor for the incidence of all-cause dementia.
Why it matters
This pilot study found that the relationship between hearing impairment and Parkinson's disease dementia incidence was uncertain due to imprecise estimates, and findings should be treated as exploratory. It suggests that further studies with more cases are needed to determine whether hearing impairment is a risk factor for Parkinson's disease dementia.
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In this observational study, zinc deficiency was associated with increased 1-year mortality and infection-related complications in patients with dementia, with evidence of a dose–response relationship.
Why it matters
Among patients with dementia, zinc deficiency was linked to higher 1-year mortality and higher risks of sepsis, ICU admission, urinary tract infection and elevated C-reactive protein. These associations weakened over longer follow-up and were no longer statistically significant, so the study does not show that correcting zinc changes outcomes.
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58/100
Among 4392 participants (mean [SD] age, 68.2 [7.8] years; 2359 [53.7%] women), 723 (16.5%) were APOE ε4 heterozygotes and 33 (0.8%) were APOE ε4 homozygotes.
Why it matters
In this cohort, carrying APOE ε4, especially having two copies, was linked to faster age-related cognitive decline that became detectable after about age 70. The authors suggest this supports early genetic risk awareness and consideration of targeted preventive strategies for APOE ε4 carriers, though no specific prevention was tested.
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Obesity promotes carcinogenesis through interlocking metabolic, inflammatory, immune, and hormonal pathways.
Why it matters
This review is about obesity and cancer risk and contains no information on Alzheimer's disease. It reports no findings relevant to treating, curing or preventing dementia.
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In the intention-to-treat analysis, dementia risk was not different between GLP1-RA and DPP4i initiators (hazard ratio [HR] 0.95, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.87–1.04; rates: 6.29 versus 6.64 per 1000 person-years; mean follow-up: 6.54 years); however, continuous GLP1-RA versus DPP4i use was associated with a 21% lower risk (HR 0.79, 95% CI 0.64–0.97; rates: 3.64 versus 4.82; mean follow-up: 2.71 years).
Why it matters
This population-based cohort study compared dementia risk among people with type 2 diabetes starting different diabetes drugs. SGLT2 inhibitors were associated with reduced dementia risk compared with DPP4 inhibitors, while the dementia risk reduction associated with the GLP1 receptor agonists studied was less certain. It suggests some diabetes drugs may be linked to lower dementia risk, but it does not show a treatment or cure.
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Among 298 participants (MCI, n = 56; NC, n = 242; mean age 75.1 years; 45.6% female), the groups were similar in age, sex, race, and APOE ε4 status at baseline, as well as in most driving behaviors.
Why it matters
This study tracked daily driving in older adults to see whether driving patterns could tell apart those with mild cognitive impairment from those with normal cognition. It is about spotting early decline, not about treating, curing, or preventing Alzheimer's disease.
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.
- Leaving no one behind: findings from stakeholder discussions in Maryland on supporting persons living alone with dementia
- Obesity and impaired cognitive functioning in the elderly: a population-based cross-sectional study (NEDICES)
- Psychological Profiles and Resilience in Family Caregivers of People with Dementia: A Latent Profile Analysis
- Mediterranean Diet and Age-Related Cognitive Decline: A Randomized Clinical Trial
- Impact of Statin Therapy on the Risk of Stroke Recurrence, Mortality, and Dementia After Ischemic Stroke (ISMARDD Study): A Comprehensive Meta-Analysis
- Incidence and prevalence of dementia among US Medicare beneficiaries, 2015-21: population based study
- Association between the Frequency of Individual Outdoor Activity and Risk of Incident Dementia in an Elderly Population in China: A National Cohort Study
- Global Prevalence, Incidence, and Factors Influencing Falls in Older Adults With Dementia: Implications for Nursing and Healthy Aging
- Associations of cardiovascular health assessed by life’s crucial 9 with incident cardiovascular disease and dementia: A prospective cohort study
- Association of ideal cardiovascular health at age 50 with incidence of dementia: 25 year follow-up of Whitehall II cohort study