Individualized approach may effectively stave off Alzheimer’s

Individualized interventions involving multidomain techniques appear to be effective for slowing cognitive decline among persons at risk for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) dementia, a recent study has found.

A total of 174 participants (aged 25–86 years) were enrolled and assigned to tailored interventions. Those with normal cognition, subjective cognitive decline or preclinical AD were assigned to a prevention intervention, while patients with mild cognitive impairment or mild AD were given the early treatment intervention.

The 18-month change values in the modified Alzheimer’s Prevention Cognitive Composite (mAPCC) were 4.6 and 4.5 points in the high- and low-compliance subgroups of the prevention intervention arm, respectively. Both were statistically significant relative to baseline scores (p<0.0001 and p=0.0002, respectively), without no meaningful difference between subgroups.

In those who were assigned to early treatment, high compliance led to a 4.8-point increase in mAPCC scores, though this failed to reach statistical significance (p=0.1073). In contrast, participants with low compliance experienced significant worsening by 6.0 points (p=0.0148). The between-subgroup difference was also significant (p=0.0007).

Compared with historical controls, the prevention intervention led to a significantly greater improvement in mAPCC scores for both high- and low-compliance subgroups. In comparison, the early treatment was only significantly better than historical controls for patients with good compliance.

“To our knowledge, this is the first empirical trial in a clinical setting indicating that individualized AD risk factor management may improve cognitive function which may be related to AD pathology,” said researchers.