Are you at risk of developing dementia? Take the test

Dementia results from multiple causes, but certain risk factors can be altered. Many people seek to comprehend their risk factors and are eager to address them once identified.

Researchers anticipate that the novel instrument could simplify the process for general practitioners and individuals to obtain data regarding dementia risk elements.

Scientists from UNSW Sydney and Neuroscience Research Australia (NeuRA) have successfully designed and assessed an instrument for gauging dementia risk, yielding encouraging preliminary outcomes.

At present, over 55 million individuals worldwide are living with dementia, a figure projected to rise to 78 million by 2030. As a result, dementia research is increasingly concentrating on preventative measures.

The web-based application, which takes about 20 minutes to finish, generates a tailored dementia risk report that individuals can review with their healthcare professional.

The CogDRisk tool, developed in 2022, has since been under evaluation by the research team, who have conducted trials using four pre-existing datasets. Their findings were recently published in The Journal of Prevention of Alzheimer’s Disease.

Upon analysis, the researchers determined that CogDRisk is indeed effective in predicting dementia.

Compiling dementia risk factors

The lack of success in clinical trials for dementia treatment has prompted a growing urgency for preventive measures in the field.

“Prevention is now recognized by the World Health Organization as one of the key areas of research,” explains Professor Kaarin Anstey from UNSW’s School of Psychology and NeuRA.

“Alzheimer’s Disease International and most of the National Dementia action plans include dementia risk reduction.”

Although numerous studies worldwide have investigated risk factors for dementia, there isn’t always a consensus on what these factors entail. To tackle this issue, the researchers employed statistical techniques to consolidate all risk factors mentioned in the existing body of literature.

Prof. Anstey states, “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.”

Some crucial modifiable risk factors that heighten the likelihood of developing dementia include inadequate physical exercise, midlife obesity, high blood pressure during middle age, smoking, and an unhealthy diet.

“That whole process took several years, we published the review, and then we had to develop the risk assessment tool itself.”

Evaluating CogDRisk – the new online test for dementia prevention

Frequently, risk assessment tools are created based on a single cohort, which makes them suitable for a specific dataset and population but less effective when applied to other groups.

In this study, the researchers analyzed four distinct cohorts from pre-existing medical investigations, encompassing varied demographics and totaling over 9,500 participants.

The cohort data was aligned with the primary risk and protective factors evaluated by the CogDRisk tool, such as the presence of diabetes, depression, and insomnia, details about individuals’ diets and eating habits, and their engagement in physical activities.

Subsequently, the team matched these factors to a record of dementia cases that emerged within the same cohort.

Prof. Anstey asserts, “Our statistical analysis shows it’s a very robust and generalisable tool. 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.”

Predicting dementia challenges and future applications of CogDRisk

Foreseeing dementia is more challenging than anticipating certain other diseases, partly due to its gradual progression over two or three decades and the potential strong genetic influence.

The developers of the dementia test hope it can be utilized in healthcare environments, facilitating easier access to risk reduction information for general practitioners and patients.

Dementia is not only associated with numerous risk factors, but it is also a highly complex condition, “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.”

Moving forward, Prof. Anstey plans to translate the online tool into various languages to make it more widely accessible.

And they’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.”

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