A new “Brain Care Score” promises to turn the fear of dementia into a checklist of lifestyle changes, raising a central question: can an online quiz meaningfully counter a disease long seen as an inevitable consequence of aging and genetics?

What the tool claims to do

Liberal-leaning coverage frames the Brain Care Score as an empowering, evidence-based way to “help keep dementia in check.”¹ CBS reports that about 40–45% of dementia cases could be prevented or delayed by addressing 14 modifiable risk factors such as physical inactivity, smoking, high blood pressure, diabetes and social isolation.² The free online questionnaire, developed by neurologist Dr. Jonathan Rosand and his team, is described as “a tool for any of us to use in our daily lives that lists out the modifiable risk factors for dementia, stroke and depression.”²

This perspective stresses that family history is not destiny. Rosand challenges the “very common conception that if dementia or Alzheimer’s is in one’s family, that they are doomed,” arguing instead that “there’s so much we can do.”²

Similarities and differences in emphasis

Across liberal coverage, the narrative is consistent: lifestyle change is central, and the Brain Care Score translates complex epidemiology into a personalized prescription of daily habits—diet, exercise, and other behaviors that “can be beneficial, cutting the risk of dementia.”¹ Stories humanize this with patients who live in “incredible fear” that they will repeat a parent’s decline, then find reassurance in the notion that risk can be reduced through action.²

What’s largely absent, however, is a harder-edged critique: little attention is given to structural barriers (like pollution exposure, education, or access to healthcare) that individuals cannot easily change—even though these appear on the same list of risk factors.² Nor is there much scrutiny of how accurately a simple self-report questionnaire can capture such complex, lifelong risks.

The result is a hopeful but somewhat individualistic framing: dementia becomes a problem to be managed through personal choices, with less focus on the policy and social changes needed to make those “choices” realistically available to everyone.

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1. A tool to help keep dementia in check — "A tool to help keep dementia in check"

2. A tool to help keep dementia in check — "A committee of experts from around the globe has concluded that about 40 to 45% of dementia cases could be prevented or delayed by addressing 14 modifiable risk factors"