Automated detection of patients with dementia whose symptoms have been identified in primary care but have no formal diagnosis: a retrospective case-control study using electronic primary care records.

It is possible to detect patients with dementia who are known to GPs but unlabelled with a diagnostic code, with a high degree of accuracy in electronic primary care record data. Using keywords from clinic notes and letters improves accuracy compared with coded data alone. This approach could improve identification of dementia cases for record-keeping, service planning and delivery of good quality care.