A planning committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine will organize and convene a two-day public workshop focused on improving the diagnostics used to assess cognitive change, such as establishing an ideal assessment framework and how to best model realistic change trajectories for use in assessment and analysis as well as identifying research gaps for academic researchers, for clinicians, and for the testing industry. The workshop will inform the work of NIH’s National Institutes of Aging, among others. Prior to the workshop, a commissioned paper will be drafted to review activities and research gaps and develop research and implementation strategies for advancing cognitive change diagnostics for use in trials and clinical practice. This will include evaluating the state of the science in the area of cognitive change measurement, with a strong focus on (a) identifying clear criteria of what the valid assessment of cognitive change would need to accomplish, and (b) exploring innovative solutions to meet these criteria. The following key questions will be addressed in the workshop:

• What is the state of the science for change measurement in cognitive diagnostics and what standards would modern change-assessment methods have to meet in order to identify both normal and pathological trajectories?
• What are the most promising developments in statistical modeling of change that integrate both population-level norms and individual-level score information?
• What are best practices and intervals for assessing change in cognitive functioning, for short- and long-term applications, and how might that inform the future of cognitive testing?
• What are the potential benefits and costs of moving from cognitive-status-based cross-sectional population norms towards population change norms?
• What assessment methods can be used to improve measurement density in a feasible manner?

The planning committee will develop the agenda, identify meeting objectives, commission the paper, and select appropriate participants. A workshop proceedings will be prepared by a designated rapporteur in accordance with institutional guidelines.