Relation of neuropathology with cognitive decline among older persons without dementia

Objective: Although it is now widely accepted that dementia has a long preclinical phase during which neuropathology accumulates and cognition declines, little is known about the relation of neuropathology with the longitudinal rate of change in cognition among older persons without dementia. We quantified the burden of the neuropathologies of the three most common causes of dementia [i.e., Alzheimer’s disease (AD), cerebrovascular disease (CVD), and Lewy body disease (LBD)] and examined their relation with cognitive decline in a large cohort of persons without dementia proximate to death.