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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There are variations in the interventions, such as location and dosage.
Why it matters
This systematic review of 19 studies found that functional communication interventions for people with primary progressive aphasia commonly build on existing strategies and practise them with a communication partner, with all studies reporting improvements but only eight reporting statistically significant results. This is about communication support in a related condition, not treating, curing or preventing Alzheimer's disease.
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Sensory impairments were common: 28% had visual impairment, 35% had hearing loss, 22% had poor smell, 12% had touch insensitivity; 26% had more than two impairments, and 5.6% had more than three sensory impairments.
Why it matters
In this study of 1,810 older black and white adults, having more sensory impairments (vision, hearing, smell, touch) was linked in a graded way to a higher risk of developing dementia over 10 years. This shows an association between sensory loss and dementia risk but does not test any treatment or prevention.
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Periodontitis is an oral inflammatory disease and may contribute to low-grade systemic inflammation.
Why it matters
Screening 509 references, this review found eight observational studies on whether periodontitis, an inflammatory gum disease, is linked to cognitive decline in adults. The authors caution that the results must be read carefully because so few studies exist, and call for better-designed long-term studies to confirm the proposed association.
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White matter hyperintensities (WMHs) are frequently seen on brain magnetic resonance imaging scans of older people.
Why it matters
This paper identifies open questions about white matter hyperintensities, which are seen on brain scans and are linked to a higher likelihood of cognitive impairment and dementia, including Alzheimer's disease. It does not report any treatment or prevention results, only research priorities.
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Virtual reality environments presented on tablets and smartphones have potential to aid the early diagnosis of conditions such as Alzheimer's dementia by quantifying impairments in navigation performance.
Why it matters
This study of 49 participants found that wayfinding performance on a mobile app correlated with real-world navigation performance, suggesting the app could aid early diagnosis of conditions such as Alzheimer's dementia. It concerns a navigation assessment tool and does not test any treatment, cure, or prevention for Alzheimer's disease.
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Patients with dementia with BD had a higher prevalence of comorbidities, greater use of comedications, and greater healthcare utilization and costs than patients with dementia without BD.
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When compared with the Low MedDiet group, the High MedDiet group was associated with better L&M performance and larger dentate gyri.
Why it matters
This cross-sectional study examined associations between Mediterranean diet adherence and cognitive and neuroimaging measures linked to Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia in healthy older adults. As a cross-sectional study, it can show associations but cannot establish that the diet prevents dementia.
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Identification of individuals at high risk of dementia is essential for development of prevention strategies, but reliable tools are lacking for risk stratification in the population.
Why it matters
This study developed and validated a model to predict the 10-year risk of developing dementia in the general population. It is a risk prediction tool and does not provide a treatment, cure, or prevention for Alzheimer's disease.
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This study aims to systematically evaluate the efficacy of Pet robot intervention (PRI) for people with dementia.
Why it matters
Pet robot intervention significantly reduced behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia, especially agitation and depression, but showed no significant improvements in cognitive function or quality of life. It may be suitable as a treatment option for these behavioral symptoms, not as a cure or prevention.
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Nutrition is an important lifestyle factor that can modify the risk of future cognitive impairment and dementia.
Why it matters
This review describes some, but not conclusive, evidence of a protective association between certain nutrients or food groups and cognitive outcomes in older people, mostly from observational studies. It states that evidence is somewhat stronger for healthy dietary patterns such as the Mediterranean-type diet than for individual nutrients, and that the effectiveness of multidomain interventions including a nutrition component is still uncertain.
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57/100
The pathophysiological mechanism of freezing of gait (FoG) has been linked to executive dysfunction.
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57/100
Terminal illness decedents are more likely to receive any palliative care, with increased intensity and earlier before death than organ failure or frailty decedents.
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The Mediterranean Dietary (MedDiet) Pattern has been linked to many beneficial health effects.
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Appropriate dietary pattern for preserving cognitive function in northern Europe remains unknown.
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Late-life lower BMI relates to faster rates of decline in cognition, specifically semantic memory and episodic memory, in both blacks and whites.
Why it matters
This cohort study found that lower baseline body mass index was related to faster decline in global cognition among older black and white persons. It identifies an association and does not test any treatment, cure or prevention.
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The upward hospital death trend and fact that being married are risk factors for hospital death suggest that a reliance on hospitals may coexist with a tradition of extended family support.
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Poisson regression was used to model dementia incidence as a function of age, sex, educational level, race, and birth cohort, with profile likelihood used to identify the timing of significant increases or decreases in incidence.
Why it matters
In this birth cohort analysis, dementia incidence decreased significantly among people born after July 1929. This is an observational trend finding and does not test a treatment, cure or prevention.
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Available data, while limited and complicated by selection bias, indicate that exposure to RBT represents the greatest risk factor for CTE pathological features, although clinicopathological correlates and the nature of onset and progression of symptoms are largely unknown.
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Little is known about the effectiveness of a psychosocial behaviour management programme on home-dwelling people with dementia.
Why it matters
A programme for care managers and professional caregivers reduced challenging behaviour in home-dwelling people with dementia over 6 months compared with usual care. This is a treatment approach for managing symptoms, not a cure or prevention.
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Regular health status updates and end of life discussions can help families understand dementia progression and prepare for end of life.
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Dementia is an increasing focus for policymakers, civil organizations and multidisciplinary researchers.
Why it matters
This narrative review of 14 population studies (nine on how common dementia is, five on new cases) from Sweden, Spain, the UK, the Netherlands, France, the USA, Japan and Nigeria found that, except for the Japanese study, dementia prevalence and incidence were stable or declining, with some evidence of differences between the sexes. The authors stress that such trends are only clear when studies use the same diagnostic and research methods over time. They suggest better living conditions, education and healthcare might have lowered dementia risk, but no single factor explains the trend, and this is a hypothesis rather than a tested finding.
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Major depression in older adults is common and can be effectively treated with antidepressants and electroconvulsive therapy.
Why it matters
This review of depression in older adults states that high-quality evidence does not support the use of pharmacologic treatment of depression in patients with dementia. It reports no treatment, cure or prevention of Alzheimer's disease itself.
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Numerous tools for assessment of cognitive impairment in low-literacy settings have been developed, and tools developed for use in high-income countries have also been validated in low-literacy settings.
Why it matters
This review of cognitive screening tools found that many validation studies used a case-control design, which can cause spectrum bias. It does not test any treatment, cure or prevention for Alzheimer's disease.
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Survival after dementia diagnosis differs by race/ethnicity, with shortest survival among whites and longest among Asian Americans.
Why it matters
After a dementia diagnosis, white patients had the shortest survival time and Asian Americans the longest, with other groups in between. These differences mostly matched the mortality patterns seen in people without dementia, so they may reflect broader health differences rather than dementia care alone.
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Women are disproportionately affected by Alzheimer's disease (AD) in terms of both disease prevalence and severity.
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.
- Educating families about end-of-life care in advanced dementia: acceptability of a Canadian family booklet to nurses from Canada, France, and Japan
- Vegetables, unsaturated fats, moderate alcohol intake, and mild cognitive impairment
- Excessive sleepiness is predictive of cognitive decline in the elderly
- Asundexian for Secondary Stroke Prevention
- Relationship between anxiety and fatigue in dementia family caregivers: hope as a mediator
- A Comparison of Users and Nonusers of a Web-Based Intervention for Carers of Older Persons With Alzheimer Disease and Related Dementias: Mixed Methods Secondary Analysis
- The brain's default network: anatomy, function, and relevance to disease
- Development and validation of language and visuospatial composite scores in ADNI
- Mediterranean diet and cognitive health: Initial results from the Hellenic Longitudinal Investigation of Ageing and Diet
- Determinants of place of death: a population-based retrospective cohort study