Role of nurse practitioners in comprehensive Alzheimer's disease care: Barriers and opportunities for timely diagnosis

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease. Treatments include disease-modifying therapies (DMTs), which studies showed are most effective when initiated during the early disease stages. Timely AD diagnosis is therefore important, as DMTs can potentially extend an acceptable quality of life for people with this condition. This scoping review presents the current role of nurse practitioners (NPs) in AD care and describe the current and potential future role NPs can play in timely AD diagnosis and management. A systematic search of the PubMed and CINAHL databases identified 15 relevant articles. The literature review revealed that NPs play an active role in the initial assessment of cognitive disorders; however, there is a lack of evidence for NPs acting autonomously to diagnose and treat AD. Several opportunities to increase the autonomous role of NPs are described, which could reduce barriers to timely AD diagnosis and management.