Showing posts with label dementia calculator. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dementia calculator. Show all posts
Sunday, December 28, 2025
Tuesday, April 25, 2023
New online tool shows promise for assessing dementia risk
Test yourself here: 20 minutes if you know your stats in metric
Cognitive Health and Dementia Risk Assessment
My two risk factors were my stroke and hypertension(and this is controlled), no quantitative number given so I consider this useless.
There are other calculators out there, ask your doctor for the best one.
dementia calculator (2 posts to June 2021)
The latest here:
New online tool shows promise for assessing dementia risk
Researchers at UNSW Sydney and Neuroscience Research Australia (NeuRA) have developed and evaluated a tool for assessing dementia risk, with promising initial results.
Currently, over 55 million people are living with dementia around the world, with that number set to increase to 78 million by 2030, and the focus on dementia research increasingly shifting towards prevention.
The online tool takes approximately 20 minutes to complete and provides a personalized dementia risk report that patients can discuss with their doctor.
Since developing the risk tool – known as CogDRisk – in 2022, the team has been evaluating the success of the tool, by trialing it on four existing datasets, with the results published recently in The Journal of Prevention of Alzheimer's Disease.
On their analysis, they found that CogDrisk is effective at predicting dementia.
There's lots of information about the risk factors for dementia in the academic literature.
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. CogDrisk was developed to address this."
Professor Kaarin Anstey, UNSW's School of Psychology and NeuRA
Collating the risk factors for dementia
Unsuccessful clinical trials for dementia treatment have led to urgent calls for dementia prevention.
"Prevention is now recognized by the World Health Organization as one of the key areas of research. Alzheimer's Disease International and most of the National Dementia action plans include dementia risk reduction," says Prof. Anstey.
But while there are a lot of different studies on risk factors for dementia across the world, there's not necessarily always agreement on what the risk factors are. To address this problem, the team used statistical methods to combine all the risk factors cited in the existing literature.
"So we did a systematic review, to get all the different risk factors for dementia – those which were robust, and those which were modifiable and could be assessed through a self-report instrument," says Prof. Anstey.
Neuroscience eBook Compilation of the top interviews, articles, and news in the last year. Download the latest editionSome of the key modifiable risk factors that increase someone's risk of dementia include insufficient physical activity, obesity in middle age, high blood pressure in middle age, smoking, and poor diet. "That whole process took several years, we published the review, and then we had to develop the risk assessment tool itself."
Assessing the tool on different cohorts
Often risk assessment tools are developed on a single cohort and therefore fit a particular dataset and population, which doesn't work well when applied to other populations.
This study analyzed four different cohorts from existing medical studies, with varying demographics and a total of over 9500 participants.
The cohort data was matched against the key risk and protective factors assessed in the CogDrisk tool, including whether individuals have diabetes, depression and insomnia, information on their diet and eating habits and how much they engaged in physical activity.
The team were then able to match these to a record of dementia cases that developed within the same cohort.
"Our statistical analysis shows it's a very robust and generalizable tool," says Prof. Anstey. "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."
Challenge with predicting dementia and future uses of CogDrisk
Predicting dementia is more difficult than predicting some other diseases, partly because it progresses over two or three decades and there can be a strong genetic component.
"It's a multi-causal disease. But there are some modifiable risk factors. Most people want to know what their risk factors are and want to do something about them once they know," says Prof Anstey. The team who developed the tool are hoping that in can be used in healthcare settings to make it easier for GPs and patients to get information on risk reduction.
"Not only are there lots of risk factors, but dementia itself is very complex, and GPs are very busy. So we're trying to develop ways of making it easier for the public and GPs to get the right information."
Next, Prof. Anstey is looking to translate the online tool into different languages, so it's accessible to more people. "And we're also looking at developing a short form of the tool. So there's a lot of happening in the research translation, as well as language translation space that we're working on."
Source:
Journal reference:
Kootar, S, et al. (2023). Validation of the CogDrisk Instrument as Predictive of Dementia in Four General Community-Dwelling Populations. Journal of Prevention of Alzheimer's Disease. doi.org/10.14283/jpad.2023.38.
Posted in: Device / Technology News | Medical Condition News
Wednesday, April 12, 2023
This quick online test will tell if you face a 37% higher risk of dementia
Zero on the 4 question test, zero on the 10 question test, didn't do the long test, couldn't figure out the scoring. To me this means YOUR DOCTOR HAS COMPLETE RESPONSIBILITY TO NOT INJECT STRESS IN YOUR LIFE! That means 100% recovery protocols!
This quick online test will tell if you face a 37% higher risk of dementia
If you want to know if you face an extra risk of developing cognitive impairment or dementia when you get older, you can take a couple of quick—and free—online tests. There’s a short one here with only four questions, one here with 10, and a long one here with 30.
They’re called the Cohen Perceived Stress Scale and they supposedly measure—you guessed it—how stressed we feel in our everyday lives.
You’re actually supposed to take them quickly, without thinking about the answers too much, so they only take a couple of minutes.
And that’s critical because a new study has found that older people who have higher levels of stress are more likely to develop dementia. An astonishing 37% more likely, just within an 11-year period.
“Elevated levels of perceived stress…were associated with 1.37 times higher odds of poor cognition after adjustment for socio-demographic variables, cardiovascular risk factors, and depression,” write Ambar Kulshreshtha, a medical doctor and professor of epidemiology at Emory University, and co-authors in a new paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association. (The article is available, for free, here.)
Technically they can only prove the two are “associated.” Definitive proof of causation is notoriously hard to get.
This was based on a study of nearly 24,500 subjects over the age of 45 over an 11-year period, involving in-home interviews, phone interviews and questionnaires that they filled out themselves. The in-home interviews included blood tests and physical exams, so the whole thing was in depth.
The study was especially remarkable for several reasons: The size and the ethnic diversity.
The median age was 64, and women and Black Americans were oversampled: The group studied was 60% female and 42% Black. A disproportionate number also lived in the southeast, where average health scores are lower than in the rest of the country.
The findings show the importance of looking at statistics closely. For example, across the entire group, those who had high stress levels were more likely to be younger, female, Black, have lower incomes, not have a college degree, and live in the southeast. Those with high levels or stress were also more likely to have cardiovascular disease, such as high blood pressure and diabetes. But the connection between stress and risk of dementia was independent of that: So even though it is, for example, true that someone poor is more likely to have high stress and that raises their risk of developing dementia, someone well off who has high stress is just as likely to develop dementia.
The thing that surprised me was how low the bar is for “elevated stress.” The researchers counted anyone scoring 5 or above on the 4-question version, out of a maximum of 16 (with 16 equaling maximum stress). In other words, just scoring 32% or higher on the stress scale is enough to put you at risk.
The authors say that “perceived stress is defined as a consequence of events or demands that exceed an individual’s professed ability to cope.”
According to this survey—reported here by psychology professor Sheldon Cohen of Carnegie Mellon University, who first developed the scale—the average was about 35% for those in their 20s, declining to about 30% for those 55 and over. The survey was conducted in the 1990s, and used the 10-point scale.
I confess myself amazed at how calm everyone is.
I better not report my score, in case I ever want to buy life insurance. But based on my reading, the effort I am putting in to ensure I have enough money for a long and healthy old age is almost certainly wasted. I probably didn’t need to quit smoking either.
Admittedly, these “averages” were from before the rise of the internet, smartphones, “social” media, and all the other things that are supposed to be making our lives—ahem—“better.”
If you think they are, ask yourself if Twitter, Facebook, and the need to check your email 16 hours a day is raising, or lowering, the overall stress in your life.
The latest study adds to growing evidence that high levels of stress are really bad for our health. These smaller previous studies—here and here — linked them to dementia. Research conducted by Cohen found that overall stress makes us more susceptible to diseases generally.
And this study found that work-related stress over the long term makes you more susceptible to cancer. Naturally enough stress also makes you more susceptible to depression.
The question is what we can do about it? Researchers refer to stress as a “modifiable” factor, because in theory we can control it or influence it. The Mayo Clinic lists all sorts of positive things we can do that might lower our stress. A 20 minute walk in the park (or in nature generally) can help. Mindful meditation and chanting can too.
(I confess I’ve let my chanting slide.)
And, of course, playing with a pet can be a great stress buster. Pretty much any pet.
Meanwhile those with an analytical mind may find the PSS scale itself useful, as it breaks down general “stress” into a handful of specific questions about our lives that we could tackle individually.
And if you were looking for a final inspiration to dump that smartphone and “social” media, this is it.
Saturday, June 26, 2021
Project Big Life Dementia Calculator
Based on your responses, your risk of being diagnosed with dementia in the next five years is 3%.
Actually I consider it much lower than that.
No easy way to change your answers and see which questions you need to improve upon.
Project Big Life Dementia Calculator
Or you can try this one, much less info provided, doesn't take into account exercise or social connections.
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