| Summary: | OBJECTIVE: We conducted this systematic review to support the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) in updating its recommendation on screening for cognitive impairment in older adults. Our review addresses five questions: 1) Does screening for cognitive impairment in community-dwelling older adults improve decisionmaking, patient, family/caregiver, or societal outcomes?; 2) What is the test performance of screening instruments to detect dementia or mild cognitive impairment (MCI) in community-dwelling older adult primary care patients?; 3) What are the harms of screening for cognitive impairment?; 4) Do interventions for early dementia or MCI in older adults improve decisionmaking, patient, family/caregiver, or societal outcomes?; and 5) What are the harms of interventions for cognitive impairment? CONCLUSIONS: We found no trial evidence that examined the effect of screening for cognitive impairment on patient, caregiver, or clinician decisionmaking or important patient, caregiver, or societal outcomes. Several brief screening instruments can adequately detect dementia, especially in populations with a higher prevalence of underlying dementia. Despite the size of this body of literature, only a handful of instruments have been studied as screening tests in more than one study. AChEIs, memantine, complex caregiver interventions, and cognitive stimulation all have evidence to support their use in mild to moderate dementia, specifically AD. However, the clinical importance of their benefit is unclear because the average effects of benefit observed in trials was small or had a large amount of imprecision
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