Patient Characteristics, Disease Staging, and Diagnostic Testing Prior Initial Alzheimer’s Disease Diagnosis

Enriching claims data with NLP-derived clinical values added important depth to this retrospective analysis. By identifying cognitive test results, we found racial and ethnic disparities in AD staging preceding a new AD diagnosis. We also found a suboptimal number of patients that received imaging to confirm their AD diagnosis regardless of stage. Future research is needed to better assess the impacts of suboptimal diagnostic testing.