The Gerontological Society of America (GSA) has released a new report, " Understanding Breakthroughs in Brain Health: Top 10 Articles of 2024 ," to support busy clinicians in their efforts to remain abreast of recent research that informs the diagnosis and management of dementia, and to implement relevant findings regarding brain health in practice.
It provides a compilation of summaries of key articles from 2024 that may have an important impact on primary care for brain health, and is the first in a line of "Top 10" reports to be produced under GSA's Insights & Implications in Gerontology publication series.
The article selection process for the report was guided by an expert advisory board and aimed to identify literature that presents findings that are relevant to the daily practice of primary care providers (PCPs). The board included Soo Borson, MD, from the University of Southern California, Barak Gaster MD, from the University of Washington, Frederick Ketchum, MD, PhD, from the University of Wisconsin, and Kemi Reeves, DNP, MBA, GNP-BC from the University of California, Los Angeles.
"PCPs play critical roles supporting brain health for the adults that they care for; these roles include screening, diagnosing, initiating treatment, and implementing supports for people with dementia and their caregivers," Borson said.
In fact, more than 85% of Medicare beneficiaries with dementia were diagnosed by a PCP or other non-specialist provider.
The development of new approaches to detect dementia earlier in the course of the disease and the emergence of interventions that can delay the progression of dementia have placed increased emphasis on brain health in primary care.
"With new tools becoming available that can facilitate early diagnosis and interventions for dementia, PCPs have opportunities to improve care trajectories for their patients," explained Borson.
The selected articles address topics such as early diagnosis of dementia (including how emerging information about biomarkers can be applied to the diagnosis of dementia in practice), the use of non-biased tools to assess cognitive concerns, actionable strategies for dementia prevention, dementia care, defining meaningful outcomes in dementia care and approaches for supporting caregivers.
Support for this issue of Insights & Implications in Gerontology was provided by Lilly.
