Project Description
Timely dementia diagnosis can help millions of Americans with dementia plan for financial and caregiving needs, adopt lifestyle-based modifications to slow cognitive decline, and access disease modifying treatments that target early stages of the disease. Cognitive assessment can support early detection of cognitive impairment. While healthcare claims are a valuable resource for assessing healthcare use and its association with dementia diagnosis and care, cognitive assessment tests are not typically reported in these data. Consequently, it remains unclear how assessment findings impact follow-up care, including repeat cognitive testing, referrals to dementia specialists, brain imaging, medication management, and receipt of a dementia diagnosis. This pilot project will leverage rich electronic health records data and advanced machine learning methods to characterize the clinical pathway from cognitive assessment to dementia diagnosis. By integrating structured and unstructured data on cognitive assessments, referrals to specialists and brain imaging, and medication management, this study will provide new insights into provider decision-making and healthcare delivery processes that might support early detection of cognitive impairment.