ESOC 2025 | Stroke and dementia: understanding the link and the role of cognitive screening
Terence Quinn, MD, MRCP, MBCHB (hons), University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK, comments on the significance of the link between stroke and dementia. He notes that this is a widespread issue that all clinicians should be aware of, and that the field is moving towards recognizing its importance. Prof. Quinn then goes on to give advice for screening for cognitive decline in patients who have had a stroke. This interview took place at the 11th European Stroke Organisation Conference (ESOC) in Helsinki, Finland.
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Transcript
It’s incredibly significant now. Of course, I would say that as an academic working in the field, but I think other people are starting to recognize the importance now. And the evidence of that is actually at the European Stroke Organisation conference. So the session that’s just completed was in one of the big rooms. It was a sellout session. It was standing room only...
It’s incredibly significant now. Of course, I would say that as an academic working in the field, but I think other people are starting to recognize the importance now. And the evidence of that is actually at the European Stroke Organisation conference. So the session that’s just completed was in one of the big rooms. It was a sellout session. It was standing room only. And if I think back to even a few years ago, it used to be that the cognitive session was at the end of the day. It was competing with the cheese and wine. It was in a tiny room. So, you know, the field has really moved on. People are realizing this is significant. And we can put that significance in numbers. We did a meta-analysis two years ago and we looked at the prevalence of dementia in everyone with stroke. So any form of dementia in anyone living with stroke, and it was one in five. One in five people living with stroke is also living with dementia. So this isn’t niche in any way. This is absolutely something that all clinicians need to be thinking about. People are convinced that this is important. And I do believe that people are beginning to realize the importance of this. The follow-up question then is, how should we be looking for it. There’s been lots of debate in the field on the best cognitive screening test. When I was editor of Cognitive Dementia, we did a lot of work comparing one screening test to the other. The truth is, most screening tests are reasonably good. And I don’t think we’ll ever say there is one perfect test, because the test you use depends very much on the amount of training you have, the amount of time you have, the feasibility you have to perform testing. If you’re doing testing in the emergency department of a busy hospital, the tests available to you will be very different to if you have an hour-long consultation in a tertiary referral clinic. So my advice to clinicians is don’t worry too much about the tool that you’re using for testing, but just try and do some form of cognitive testing.
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Disclosures
I chair Data Safety Monitoring Committees for trials in dementia run by NovoNordisk. I receive no personal payment for this work.
