An ad hoc committee will assess the evidence on care-related interventions for people with dementia and their caregivers, and make recommendations to inform decision making about disseminating and implementing care interventions on a broad scale. The committee’s work will be based on a systematic review commissioned by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and is taking place in two phases. In the first phase, which has been completed, the committee provided input into the design of the AHRQ systematic review in the form of a letter report that describes potential changes to and considerations for the preliminary systematic review key questions and scope.
In this second phase, after the AHRQ systematic review is released, the committee will reconvene to consider the evidence found. The committee’s scope will be based on the final key questions and scope of the AHRQ systematic review, which will address care interventions relevant to Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (AD/ADRD, to include Lewy body dementia, frontotemporal dementia, and vascular cognitive impairment/dementia). The committee will hold an information-gathering workshop open to the public during the course of its work to seek input from stakeholders on the draft AHRQ report. Based predominantly on the AHRQ systematic review, as well as on this additional expert and public input, the committee will assess the quality of existing evidence and develop a detailed report that makes recommendations to inform NIA and the AD/ADRD community (including, but not limited to, persons living with dementia and their families, and their healthcare providers) regarding whether sufficient evidence exists for care/nonpharmacologic interventions that are ready for dissemination and implementation on a broad scale. The report will also identify gaps in relevant fields of research that the NIH may wish to explore further.