A recent article from CNN asks whether you can estimate your risk of developing dementia or having a stroke as you get older. It turns out that this may be possible, and it doesn’t require advanced neuroimaging or expensive medical procedures. The article discusses a simple questionnaire may be used to help individuals determine their risk for dementia or stroke.
The 21-point Brain Care Score (BCS) was conceptualized and developed by researchers from the McCance Center for Brain Health, including Zeina Chemali, MD, MPH, Director of Neuropsychiatry Clinics and Training in the Departments of Psychiatry and Neurology and an Associate Professor in Psychiatry and Neurology at Harvard Medical School. In order to maximize practitioner and patient engagement, the BCS was developed using a group consensus process that systematically and quantitatively combined patient feedback, expert opinion, and scientific evidence.
The BCS includes common modifiable risk factors for dementia and stroke that are most widely endorsed by professional organizations and patient advocacy groups. A scoring system was designed to give more emphasis to factors hypothesized to have the strongest associations with risk for dementia and/or stroke. The questionnaire can be filled out by the patient and/or provider. Scores on the BCS range from 0 to 21, with higher scores reflecting lower burden of risk factors for dementia and stroke.
Rather than focusing on risk factors that are not modifiable, such as family history or socioeconomic status, the BCS emphasizes factors that can be managed or changed. Improving one’s BCS may require medical intervention (for example, medications to manage blood pressure or cholesterol levels), but the BCS highlights behaviors that an individual may target in order to improve brain health, such as diet, exercise and use of alcohol.
Read more about the Brain Care Score HERE.
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Fernandes M, Sun H, Chemali Z, Mukerji SS, M V R Moura L, Zafar SF, Sonni A, Biffi A, Rosand J, Brandon Westover M. Brain health scores to predict neurological outcomes from electronic health records. Int J Med Inform. 2023 Dec;180:105270.
Singh SD, Oreskovic T, Carr S, Papier K, et al. The predictive validity of a Brain Care Score for dementia and stroke: data from the UK Biobank cohort. Front Neurol, Dec 2023.
Singh SD, Gutierrez-Martinez L, Newhouse A, Sonni A, Chemali Z, and Rosand J. Brain health begins with brain care. Lancet Neurol (2022) 21:961–2.
