The increasing prevalence of delayed and missed diagnoses for dementia constitutes major public concern. In this regard, inadequate knowledge and poor understanding of the condition may create a barrier to timely dementia screening. This cross-sectional study assessed dementia literacy, then identified the association between dementia literacy and willingness to undergo routine dementia screening among community-dwelling older adults in two urban areas of Japan. More specifically, structured questionnaires were distributed to a total of 854 individuals aged ≥ 65 years. A multivariate logistic regression was then used to explore the factors associated with dementia literacy and willingness to undergo routine dementia screening. Results showed that younger respondents and respondents who received dementia information from television/radio and/or paper-based sources were more likely to have high dementia literacy. While less than half of participants were willing to undergo routine dementia screening, those with higher dementia literacy were more willing to do so (albeit, not a statistically significant difference). Although there are pros and cons to routine dementia screening, it is necessary to implement such a system to detect dementia and cognitive impairment. Further, assessments should also attempt to gain information about individual beliefs and understandings related to dementia information.

Dementia is a chronic brain disorder classified by four distinct diseases that impact cognition and mental degeneration. Each subgroup exhibits similar brain deficiencies and mutations. This review will focus on four dementia subgroups: Alzheimer's disease, vascular dementia, frontotemporal dementia and dementia Lewy body.

Despite its importance as the leading cause of vascular dementia, the primary pathogenic mechanisms in subcortical ischemic vascular dementia (SIVD) have remained elusive. Because of the lack of approved therapeutic agents for SIVD, there is a pressing need to identify novel therapeutic targets. Comparative lipidomic analyses of SIVD and mixed dementia (i.e., SIVD and Alzheimer's disease, MixD) may also confer new insights pertaining to the possible interaction between neurodegenerative and vascular mechanisms in the pathogenesis of dementia. Liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry was used to comprehensively analyze the lipidomes of white and gray matter from the temporal cortex of nondemented controls, SIVD, and MixD subjects. Detailed molecular profiles highlighted the pathologic relevance of gray matter sphingolipid fatty acyl chain heterogeneity in dementia. In addition, the levels of sulfatides and lysobisphosphatidic acids were progressively increased in the temporal cortex gray matter from control to SIVD to MixD. White matter phospholipid profiles indicated possible adaptive mechanisms (i.e., increased unsaturation) to chronic ischemia in SIVD and elevated membrane degradation in MixD.

The Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR) is a well-validated instrument widely used to detect and stage dementia due to Alzheimer disease. The digital Electronic Clinical Dementia Rating (eCDR) can be remotely self-administered and automatically scored, with potential to facilitate efficient dementia screening and staging.

This study describes the prevalence of dementia and major dementia subtypes in Spanish elderly.

HEALTH ISSUES: Dementia, including Alzheimer's disease (AD) increases exponentially with age from the age of 65. The number of people with dementia will increase significantly over the next three decades as the population ages. While prevalence and incidence rates do not differ markedly in women, compared to men, women live longer on average, so the number of women with dementia is greater than for men. Also, women are more frequently caregivers for people with dementia. Thus, dementia is an important health problem for women. KEY FINDINGS: The Canadian Study of Health and Aging showed an increase in prevalence of dementia with age for both sexes, approximately doubling every five years of age. Rates of AD were higher in women whereas rates of vascular dementia were higher in men. The risk of AD increased with increasing age, lower education, and apolipoprotein E epsilon4. Regular physical activity was clearly protective in women; this was less clear for men. Use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, wine consumption, and past exposure to vaccines decreased the risk of AD. Estrogen replacement therapy did not reduce the risk of AD. About three quarters of caregivers for dementia patients were women. DATA GAPS AND RECOMMENDATIONS: The protective effect of regular physical activity for AD provides an additional reason to promote regular physical activity at all ages. Ongoing surveillance of the incidence, prevalence and risks for dementia is needed to monitor the impact of treatments as well as the aging of the population on the burden of dementia.

Assessing dementia knowledge is critical for developing and improving effective interventions. There are many different tools to assess dementia knowledge, but only one has been validated in German so far.

We investigated the structural changes associated with Alzheimer's disease, dementia with Lewy bodies and Parkinson disease dementia by means of cortical thickness analysis.

To identify pathogenic variants in 107 Korean patients with sporadic frontotemporal dementia (FTD), 46 genes related to FTD, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and other dementias were screened by next-generation sequencing. Hexanucleotide repeats in C9orf72 gene were also tested by repeat-primed polymerase chain reaction. Next-generation sequencing revealed one known pathogenic variant (c.708+1G>A) in the GRN gene in a patient with behavioral variant FTD (bvFTD). In addition, a novel in-frame deletion (c.2675_2683del) in the CSF1R gene was identified in a patient with bvFTD who had severe bifrontal atrophy with frontal subcortical white matter changes. Novel compound heterozygous variants in the AARS2 gene, c.1040+1G>A and c.636G>A (p.Met212Ile), were found in a patient with bvFTD. Forty-six variants of uncertain significance were detected in other patients. None of the patients had expanded hexanucleotide repeats in C9orf72. These results show that pathogenic variants of known FTD genes are rare in Korean FTD patients but the CSF1R and AARS2 genes should be screened for a genetic diagnosis of FTD or other dementias.

Measuring dementia knowledge can be a valuable tool for assessing the effectiveness of dementia awareness activities, identifying the potential benefits of dementia training programs, and breaking down common myths and stereotypes about dementia.

First-degree relatives of people with dementia (FH+) are at increased risk of developing Alzheimer's disease (AD). Here, we investigate "estimated years to onset of dementia" (EYO) as a surrogate marker of preclinical disease progression and assess its associations with multi-modal neuroimaging biomarkers.

Hyposmia is common in Alzheimer's dementia (AD) and Parkinson's disease dementia (PDD). We evaluated the pattern of olfactory functional connectivity (FC) in AD and PDD to uncover neural correlates that are related to olfactory dysfunction. This study enrolled 57 patients with AD and PDD and 25 control subjects. Using a seed-based approach, we compared the resting-state network from the seed-region-of-interest in the olfactory bulb, olfactory tract, piriform cortex, and orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) between groups. The PDD group showed lower FC with striatal-thalamic-frontal regions from the olfactory bulb than the AD group. The PDD group showed lower FC from left OFC with striatal-frontal regions and lower FC from right OFC with left fronto-temporal areas than the AD group. In a correlation analysis, the FC from left OFC with right insula that differed between the PDD and control groups was positively correlated with olfactory function. The present study demonstrated that this distinct olfactory functional network pattern may represent different neural mechanisms for olfactory dysfunction in AD and PDD.

People with dementia (PwD) occupy around 25% of the hospital beds. Once PwD are admitted to hospitals, their cognitive impairment is not considered in most of the cases. Thus, it causes an impact on the development of the disease becoming a stressful situation as care plans are not adapted to PwD. The aim of this study was to explore the published core elements when designing a dementia care pathway for hospital settings. A scoping review was conducted to provide an overview of the available research evidence and identify the knowledge gaps regarding the topic. This review highlights person-centered care, compassionate care and end-of-life process as some of the key elements that should integrate the framework when designing a dementia care pathway. Architectonical outdoor and indoor hospital elements have also been found to be considered when adapting the healthcare context to PwD. Findings provide information about the key points to focus on to successfully design dementia interventions in hospital environments within available resources, mostly in those contexts in which national dementia plans are in its infancy. Hospitals should transform their patients' routes and processes considering the increasing demographic changes of people with cognitive impairment.

As the number of individuals diagnosed with dementia increases, so does the need to understand the preferences of persons living with dementia (PLWD) and caregivers for how clinicians can deliver a dementia diagnosis effectively, which can be a difficult process. This study describes the diagnostic communication preferences of PLWD and caregivers.

Dementia is characterized by a decline in memory, language, problem-solving and in other cognitive domains that affect a person's ability to perform everyday activities and social functioning. It is consistently agreed that cognitive impairment is an important risk factor for developing functional disabilities in patients with dementia. Functional status can be conceptualized as the ability to perform self-care, self- maintenance and physical activity. A person with dementia usually requires help with more complex tasks, such as managing bills and finances, or simply maintaining a household. Good functional performance is fundamental for elderly people to maintain independency and avoid institutionalization. The purpose of this review is to describe functional changes in demented patients, evaluating the variability in subgroups of dementias.

Public narratives around dementia have historically been negative, and have not been shaped by people with dementia themselves, but stories of living with dementia are becoming more common in the public domain. This qualitative study explored the motivations and experiences of bloggers by conducting interviews with six bloggers with dementia in the UK. Thematic analysis suggested that the asynchronous nature of blogging offered a valuable, personalised space for people with dementia to tell their own stories in their own way. Blogging as a format posed some practical challenges, but bloggers developed strategies to overcome these. Motivations for blogging were on three levels: the personal (as a journal, and as a 'room of one's own'); community (as solidarity for other people with dementia, and as comfort for families and friends) and society (as an educational and campaigning tool). Whilst the study is small, and there are many voices of people with dementia missing from the blogging community, this research demonstrates the potential for blogging by people with dementia to change public narratives and perceptions of dementia.

There has been a substantial number of systematic reviews of stress, coping and interventions for people with dementia and their caregivers. This paper provides a meta-review of this literature 1988-2014.

The understanding of survival in dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and Parkinson's disease dementia (PDD) is limited, as well as the impact of these diagnoses in an ageing co-morbid population.

Many subjects with neuropathologically-confirmed dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) are never diagnosed during life, instead being categorized as Alzheimer's disease dementia (ADD) or unspecified dementia. Unrecognized DLB therefore is a critical impediment to clinical studies and treatment trials of both ADD and DLB. There are studies that suggest that olfactory function tests may be able to distinguish DLB from ADD, but few of these had neuropathological confirmation of diagnosis. We compared University of Pennsylvania Smell Identification Test (UPSIT) results in 257 subjects that went on to autopsy and neuropathological examination. Consensus clinicopathological diagnostic criteria were used to define ADD and DLB, as well as Parkinson's disease with dementia (PDD), with (PDD+AD) or without (PDD-AD) concurrent AD; a group with ADD and Lewy body disease (LBD) not meeting criteria for DLB (ADLB) and a clinically normal control group were also included. The subjects with DLB, PDD+AD and PDD-AD all had lower (one-way ANOVA p < 0.0001, pairwise Bonferroni p < 0.05) first and mean UPSIT scores than the ADD, ADLB or control groups. For DLB subjects with first and mean UPSIT scores less than 20 and 17, respectively, Firth logistic regression analysis, adjusted for age, gender and mean MMSE score, conferred statistically significant odds ratios of 17.5 and 18.0 for the diagnosis, vs ADD. For other group comparisons (PDD+AD and PDD-AD vs ADD) and UPSIT cutoffs of 17, the same analyses resulted in odds ratios ranging from 16.3 to 31.6 (p < 0.0001). To our knowledge, this is the largest study to date comparing olfactory function in subjects with neuropathologically-confirmed LBD and ADD. Olfactory function testing may be a convenient and inexpensive strategy for enriching dementia studies or clinical trials with DLB subjects, or conversely, reducing the inclusion of DLB subjects in ADD studies or trials.

To assess the influence of cognitive, functional and behavioral factors, co-morbidities as well as caregiver characteristics on driving cessation in dementia patients.