ArticleBMC geriatrics2023
Functional activity level reported by an informant is an early predictor of Alzheimer's disease.
Article in BMC geriatrics, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 9 citations in OpenAlex.
- Unawareness of deficits in mild cognitive impairment: a systematic review of its role in progression to Alzheimer's disease.BMC neurology · 2026Pooled it
- Comprehensive Anatomical Staging Predicts Clinical Progression in Mild Cognitive Impairment: A Data-Driven Approach.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Article
- Article
- Explainable Machine Learning Models for Brain Diseases: Insights from a Systematic Review.Neurology international · 2024Review
- Characterizing the progression from mild cognitive impairment to dementia: a network analysis of longitudinal clinical visits.BMC medical informatics and decision making · 2024Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundLoss of autonomy in day-to-day functioning is one of the feared outcomes of Alzheimer's disease (AD), and relatives may have been worried by subtle behavioral changes in ordinary life situations long before these changes are given medical attention. In the present study, we ask if such subtle changes should be given weight as an early predictor of a future AD diagnosis.
methodsLongitudinal data from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) were used to define a group of adults with a mild cognitive impairment (MCI) diagnosis remaining stable across several visits (sMCI, n=360; 55-91 years at baseline), and a group of adults who over time converted from having an MCI diagnosis to an AD diagnosis (cAD, n=320; 55-88 years at baseline). Eleven features were used as input in a Random Forest (RF) binary classifier (sMCI vs. cAD) model. This model was tested on an unseen holdout part of the dataset, and further explored by three different permutation-driven importance estimates and a comprehensive post hoc machine learning exploration.
resultsThe results consistently showed that measures of daily life functioning, verbal memory function, and a volume measure of hippocampus were the most important predictors of conversion from an MCI to an AD diagnosis. Results from the RF classification model showed a prediction accuracy of around 70% in the test set. Importantly, the post hoc analyses showed that even subtle changes in everyday functioning noticed by a close informant put MCI patients at increased risk for being on a path toward the major cognitive impairment of an AD diagnosis.
conclusionThe results showed that even subtle changes in everyday functioning should be noticed when reported by relatives in a clinical evaluation of patients with MCI. Information of these changes should also be included in future longitudinal studies to investigate different pathways from normal cognitive aging to the cognitive decline characterizing different stages of AD and other neurodegenerative disorders.
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