A new study published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia: Diagnosis, Assessment & Disease Monitoring, and led by Natascha Merten, PhD, MS, assistant professor, Geriatrics and Gerontology, provides evidence on how to improve existing risk prediction models for cognitive impairment and dementia in people in their midlife.

The study evaluated results from 1,529 people enrolled in the longitudinal Beaver Dam Offspring Study (BOSS), which followed participants’ sensory and cognitive aging over a ten-year period.

“When we added measures of hearing loss, vision loss, loss of smell and motor function, we were better at determining who is at risk for cognitive decline or cognitive impairment 10 years later,” summarized Dr. Merten, who is also an assistant professor in the UW Department of Population Health Sciences. “We were better in our predictions of impairment or decline compared to previous scores that were focusing on education and variables associated with heart disease only.”

Read the full story from UW School of Medicine and Public Health.

Banner: Dr. Merten, lead author on the new study. Credit: Clint Thayer/Department of Medicine.