NIA director Richard Hodes summarizes an initiative to evaluate the state of the science on interventions intended to mediate age-related cognitive decline, mild cognitive impairment, and Alzheimer’s-type dementia. NIA asked the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to evaluate recent salient research. AHRQ found that most interventions “showed no evidence of benefit to delay or prevent” these conditions, but that some cognitive training improved performance in the domain of focus. NIA then had the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) review and expand upon AHRQ’s findings. NASEM found “encouraging but inconclusive” evidence for three types of interventions: cognitive training, blood pressure management in people with hypertension, and physical activity.
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