Methodological issues in screening for dementia: the problem of education adjustment

The methodological problems of developing efficient and unbiased screening methods for population-based studies of dementia have received scant attention. The potential advantages of education-adjusted screening methods are discussed. The implications for adjustment techniques of a negative correlation of educational attainment with age are emphasized. Two education adjustment methods, a stratified regression method and a nonparametric method, which take the age-education correlation into account are described, compared, and illustrated.