There may be a new way to diagnose whether a patient is progressing toward dementia/Alzheimer's or experiencing more benign, age-related memory loss. It amounts to a revamped approach toward analyzing the results of cognitive tests. Johns Hopkins researchers determined that no matter how low patients' cognitive scores, those with lopsided results (impairment in some areas but not others) were more likely to be experiencing dementia. But patients who scored low and had even distribution of those results were unlikely to develop dementia. Researchers based their scores on 13 cognitive measures. If future research supports their results, the model may offer a more definitive way to catch Alzheimer's before it advances and start treatment sooner. Details are published in the journal Neuropsychology. Item | Journal abstract