Abstract
Dementia and its most common cause, Alzheimer‘s disease, affect memory and occur predominantly in the elderly. Dementia has become increasingly prevalent in the world as health has improved and life expectancy has increased. However, the fields of clinical care have not responded adequately to develop diagnostic tools and treatments for this rapidly increasing group of conditions. While scientists search for cures for the numerous causes of dementia, improvement of diagnostic measures are needed now and should begin with screening elderly populations for memory difficulties and other cognitive problems. This review examines the history of cognitive screening tests, the numerous excellent tests that are currently available and ready for use, and directions and methods that will lead to progressively better evaluations.
Financial & competing interests disclosure
This research is supported by grant AG 17824 from the NIH, by the Medical Research Service of the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System, and by the Department of Veterans Affairs Sierra-Pacific Mental Illness Research, Education, and Clinical Center. The content is solely the responsibility of the author and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH, or the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The author has stock in Satoris, Inc, CA, USA. The author has no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.
No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.
Notes
Note: these guidelines are difficult to apply to a large, heterogeneous population such as that at risk for dementia.
Adapted from Citation[119] for the Evidence-Based Medicine Working Group; authors based in the British Commonwealth.
Adapted from Citation[305].
“Mental status evaluation: often the presence of dementia can be established by a simple mental status examination demonstrating loss of memory for recent events, spatial and temporal disorientation, and generally diminished intellectual capacities. A schema for the systematic mental status evaluation is given in Table” (from Wells, 1971 Citation[46]).
Adapted from Citation[1].