Fully-automated analysis of voice recordings–from neuropsychological tests–found to help differentiate normal cognition from dementia and mild cognitive impairment

Voice Record­ings Spot Cog­ni­tive Impair­ment (Med­Page Today): A machine-learn­ing mod­el iden­ti­fied mild cog­ni­tive impair­ment and demen­tia from dig­i­tal voice record­ings of neu­ropsy­cho­log­i­cal tests, an ear­ly study showed. Among 1,084 peo­ple in the Fram­ing­ham Heart Study whose tests were record­ed, the aver­age area under the curve (AUC) reached 92.6% for dif­fer­en­ti­at­ing nor­mal cog­ni­tion from demen­tia, 88.0% for…

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Six guidelines to navigate the Aduhelm controversy and (hopefully) help patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment and early-stage Alzheimer’s Disease

The approval of a con­tro­ver­sial new drug for Alzheimer’s dis­ease, Aduhelm, is shin­ing a spot­light on mild cog­ni­tive impair­ment — prob­lems with mem­o­ry, atten­tion, lan­guage or oth­er cog­ni­tive tasks that exceed changes expect­ed with nor­mal aging. After ini­tial­ly indi­cat­ing that Aduhelm could be pre­scribed to any­one with demen­tia, the Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion now spec­i­fies that…

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Study with 330 centenarians finds that cognitive decline is not inevitable

Age-Relat­ed Cog­ni­tive Decline May Not Be Inevitable (Web­MD): It is often assumed that a decrease in mem­o­ry and brain func­tion are inevitable parts of aging, but a new study of cen­te­nar­i­ans sug­gests oth­er­wise. Inves­ti­ga­tors found that despite the pres­ence of neu­ro­log­i­cal issues gen­er­al­ly asso­ci­at­ed with Alzheimer’s dis­ease (AD), many cen­te­nar­i­ans main­tained high lev­els of cognitive…

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Test your cognitive flexibility with this fun brain teaser

Ready to test your cog­ni­tive flex­i­bil­i­ty and con­cen­tra­tion pow­ers? Try this clas­sic brain teas­er, fun for kids and adults alike. Quick! Say aloud what col­or you see in every word. Don’t read the word — say the col­or :-) Tougher than expect­ed, right? This brain teas­er is actu­al­ly called the Stroop Test and is often used in…

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Study: 10-minute cognitive test MoCA helps predict long-term motor, cognitive and mortality outcomes after stroke

___ Sim­ple test may help pre­dict long-term out­come after stroke (Sci­ence Dai­ly): “We found that this test, which takes less than 10 min­utes, can help pre­dict whether peo­ple will have impaired think­ing skills, prob­lems that keep them from per­form­ing dai­ly tasks such as bathing and dress­ing and even whether they will be more like­ly to die,”…

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