Introduction: With a rapidly aging population, general practitioners are confronting the challenge of how to determine those who are at greatest risk for dementia and potentially need more specialized follow-up to mitigate symptoms early in its course. We created a practical dementia risk score and provided individualized estimates of future dementia risk.
Methods: Using the Framingham Heart Study data, we built our prediction model using Cox proportional hazard models and developed a point system for the risk score and risk estimates.
Results: The score system used total points ranging from -1 to 31 and stratifies individuals into different levels of risk. We estimated 5-, 10-, and 20-year dementia risk prediction and incorporated these into the points system.
Discussion: This risk score system provides a practical tool because all included predictors are easy to assess by practitioners. It can be used to estimate future probabilities of dementia for individuals.
Keywords: Dementia; Framingham Heart Study; Prediction; Risk factor; Risk score.
Copyright © 2017 the Alzheimer's Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.