‘Promising’ new statistical tool predicts dementia onset

It is still early days, but Australian researchers say their new statistical tool can accurately predict the age of onset of mild cognitive impairment and dementia symptoms.
 
The Florey Dementia Index (FDI), developed by researchers at The Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, uses a patient’s age and their score in the Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR) to predict the likely onset age of the disease.
 
As part of their study, published in JAMA Network Open this month, the index was created using data from 3783 participants in three long-term ageing and dementia studies.
 
Checking their prediction against the actual age of participants’ clinical dementia diagnosis, researchers say the tool showed ‘promising results’.
 
Lead author Chenyin Chu, who created the FDI, said the model predicts mild cognitive impairment with a prediction error of about 18 months and clinical dementia with an error of about eight months.
 
‘To our knowledge, the FDI model is the first to accurately predict the onset of mild cognitive impairment using only a single neuropsychological test and age,’ he said.
 
However, the researchers warn that ‘external validation is essential to assess model fairness and determine whether the FDI model performs consistently and reliably across different populations and data sources’.
 
They say that further evaluation in diverse dementia cohorts is still necessary.
 
The research’s release comes at a time when dementia is on track to becoming Australia’s biggest killer, with it expected to take over from ischemic heart disease.
 
In the past 50 years, the mortality rate for dementia has increased by 842.8%, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
 
The paper’s corresponding author Dr Nicholas (Yijun) Pan said there are hopes the tool will one day be used in a clinical setting, leading patients towards timely diagnostics, treatment, and care plans.
 
‘We need affordable non-invasive ways to accurately predict age-of-disease onset, to help improve patient care and treatment, and to enable patients to make plans while they are capable of doing so,’ he said.
 
‘Our test now needs to be prospectively validated but could potentially be used as a screening tool for people aged over 60 who have no symptoms of mild cognitive impairment or Alzheimer’s disease, especially for those at risk.’
 
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