Online tool predicts personalized dementia, Alzheimer’s risk
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Key takeaways:
- An online tool predicted risks for dementia and Alzheimer’s disease based on demographics, medical factors and lifestyle habits.
- The tool may help clinicians identify people with greater risk for these outcomes.
An online prediction tool may help identify users’ risks for dementia and Alzheimer’s disease based on individual factors, according to a study published in The Journal of Prevention of Alzheimer’s Disease.
“There’s lots of information about the risk factors for dementia in the academic literature,” Kaarin J. Anstey, PhD, FASSA, FAPS, Scientia Professor at the University of New South Wales School of Psychology and a senior principal research scientist Neuroscience Research Australia, said in a press release. “But there’s a gap between just knowing the risks and actually being able to assess whether or not you have the risk, and then knowing what to do about it.”
Anstey and colleagues developed the CogDrisk tool, which evaluates risk and protective dementia factors as outlined in the most recent base of evidence. The tool also considers the strength of the evidence and the “availability of measures that are practicable in a range of clinical and research contexts,” according to the researchers. They also developed the CogDrisk-AD tool, which predicts Alzheimer’s disease risk using similar parameters.
The researchers validated the CogDrisk tools using data from the Swedish National study on Aging and Care in Kungsholmen (SNAC-K), the Health and Retirement Study — Aging, Demographics and Memory Study (HRS ADAMS), the Cardiovascular Health Study Cognition Study (CHS-CS) and the Rush Memory and Aging Project (MAP). These data were self-reported by participants and included demographics, medical risk factors and lifestyle habits.
Across all studies, the CogDrisk performed well with either good or moderate area under the curve (AUC). Specifically, the AUC was good for SNAC-K (AUC = 0.77; 95% CI, 0.57-0.97), HRS ADAMS (AUC = 0.76; 95% CI, 0.7-0.83) and CHS-CS (AUC = 0.7; 95% CI, 0.67-0.72). MAP had a moderate AUC of 0.66 (95% CI, 0.62-0.7).
Analyses of performance by sex revealed that the AUC was highest for men in the HRS ADAMS and highest for women in the SNAC-K.
Additional analyses of the CogDrisk-AD showed that the AUC for Alzheimer’s prediction was best with data from HRS ADAMS and CHS-CS, followed by SNAC-K and MAP.
“Our statistical analysis shows it’s a very robust and generalizable tool,” Anstey said in the release. “It works across different countries and different data sets. And it’s also quite comprehensive, it includes a lot of the newer risk factors that weren’t previously included.”
References:
- Kootar S, et al. J Prev Alzheimers Dis. 2023;doi:10.14283/jpad.2023.38.
- Online tool found to be effective at assessing dementia risk. https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/986763. Published April 19, 2023. Accessed April 25, 2023.