Abstract
In recent years, “prevention” and “early diagnosis” have been growingly discussed
and explored in the field of cognitive disorders. Such increased attention to cognitive
disturbances and neurodegenerative conditions may constitute a key step for achieving
early/timely diagnosis of dementing illnesses. At the same time, it may generate possible
issues (such as a greater proportion of negative diagnostic procedures with potential
misuse of resources) that should be acknowledged by health care systems. In this report,
we present exploratory analyses aimed at investigating the sociodemographic and clinical
changes over time of all the individuals who have been cognitively assessed in a Memory
Clinic between 2002 and 2014. Overall, individuals evaluated for cognitive disturbances
have gradually become younger, more educated, and less impaired in cognitive and physical
functions at their first cognitive assessment. To date, nearly 1 of 4 individuals
completing a neuropsychological evaluation has no objective cognitive deficits, thus
presenting subjective cognitive complaints. Based on these findings, the development
and implementation of strategies for improving the referral to memory clinics is strongly
needed.
Keywords
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Article info
Footnotes
M. Cesari reports grants from Pfizer, and is Workpackage leader of an Innovative Medicines Initiative–funded project partly funded by members (Sanofi, Servier, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, and Eli Lilly) of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations. He has also received personal fees from Pfizer and Nestlé. The other authors have no competing interests to disclose.
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Copyright
© 2015 AMDA – The Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
