Current research on diagnosing dementia

Quis custodiet ipsos Custodes Quis custodiet ipsos Custodes (who is to guard the guards themselves?).1 What is the link between this rather pithy observation by a first century AD Roman poet and current research on diagnosing dementia? Read on! The paper by Tian et al (this issue, pp 433–438)2 explores the clinical utility of predictive testing of individuals with early cognitive problems. The hinterland between normal cognition and dementia is a nosological and terminological minefield. The problem is that before people develop full-blown dementia, they often pass through a stage of “pre-dementia”, referred to in Tian et al ’s …