Introduction
The conclusions in medical research should always be based on primary sources since they usually contain verified information on which clinical practice and, as a result, patients’ health depends.
Discussion
The broadest range of data is provided by reports from major international medical organizations, which contain a brief selection of statistics, primary symptoms, excerpts from health education, and recommendations: for example, dementia is described by the state Healthy People program, the Lancet magazine and the World Health Organization (Healthy People, 2020; Livingston et al., 2020; World Health Organization, 2022). As the research questions’ depth increases, their application’s scope tends to narrow, and specific contexts, such as a pandemic or organizational environment, are already being analyzed (McDermott & Gruenewald, 2019; Simonetti et al., 2020). Reviews that postulate the need to apply specific approaches in practice should be more focused on primary sources and serve to systematize knowledge, essentially having a secondary character.
The organizations indicated above can afford to refer to such reviews to present conclusions and recommendations for the general population, but not for specialists, in a concise and accessible manner. Medical researchers, in turn, reading these materials, should always check the original source for limitations, statistical significance, and the possibility of extrapolating methods in the specific demographic and other variables. For example, non-pharmacological treatment of dementia is already being considered in terms of music-based interventions, the use of neurotechnologies, and connection with stroke or asthma (Hachinski et al., 2019; Marazziti et al., 2021; Sousa et al., 2021; Varkonyi-Sepp et al., 2022). More comprehensive are reviews of multidisciplinary, classifying interventions and non-drug treatment approaches to find new research areas to optimize existing processes (Yorozuya et al., 2019; Zucchella et al., 2018).
Conclusion
Therefore, secondary sources are helpful for a comprehensive understanding of the problem, identifying gaps in the systematization of treatment, and as a starting point for researchers. Primary sources are the main information that can be applied in clinical practice and always require additional study.
References
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