Improving Dementia Care in Primary Practice

This pilot RCT (N = 80) will evaluate the feasibility and effectiveness of a new multi-level intervention-Improving Dementia Care (IDC)-which aims to increase detection of Alzheimer disease (AD) in older primary care patients with impaired cognition. In IDC, investigators will screen older primary care patients for subjective cognitive concerns and objective cognitive impairment on the Telephone Interview for Cognitive Status (TICS). To eligible patients, the research team will deliver AD Education and Personalized Decision Counseling-eliciting values and goals to reach informed, preference-based decisions on whether to have an AD evaluation. In IDC, investigators will also send to primary care physicians (PCPs) the TICS results and a smart order set (i.e., orders for AD-relevant lab and neuroimaging) via the electronic health record (EHR). The research team posits that IDC-a patient-level and PCP-level intervention-will increase AD detection more than Enhanced Usual Care (EUC), which is usual care enhanced with sending the TICS results and smart order set to the PCPs of controls-solely a PCP-level intervention. At 6 months, investigators will compare IDC's vs. EUC's effectiveness to increase rates of: 1) Incident cognitive diagnoses (e.g., Mild Cognitive Impairment, AD); 2) Orders for AD-relevant lab and neuroimaging studies, 3) Completed AD-relevant lab and neuroimaging studies; 4) Prescribed AD medications; and 5) Referrals to AD specialists, masked to treatment assignment.

Inclusion criteria

• No previous diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or Alzheimer's disease (AD).
• Have a scheduled PCP visit in the next 4-6 weeks
• Have subjective cognitive impairment
• Score ≥ 26 on the Telephone Interview for Cognitive Status (TICS)

Exclusion criteria

• EHR evidence or previous cognitive evaluations, diagnosis of MCI or AD, or use of AD medications
• TICS score of ≤ 11.00
• Inability to provide informed consent