2 | 17 Introduction The number of people with dementia in western countries is expected to increase dramatically (1). As a consequence of increased public awareness around dementia, more older people become worried about their memory or the possibility of having dementia and ask for cognitive assessment by a specialist (2, 3). At the same time, dementia is still underdiagnosed in a lot of countries and when people seek help it often occurs in a late stage of the disease when activities in daily living are already heavily impacted (4). Although the high rates of under diagnoses can partly be explained by difficulties in accessing care and the complexity of healthcare systems (5, 6), this paradox reflects the difficulty of the decision to start a diagnostic process for patients and significant others (SO). The decision to start diagnostic testing for dementia is considered preferencebased (7, 8). In the absence of curative medicine, the advantages and disadvantages of diagnostic process are, presumably, valued differently by each individual. Advantages of (early) diagnosis of dementia include: enabling patients and their SOs to plan their future and care (9), delaying the disease progression with future effective interventions (10, 11), and providing time for the person with dementia to decide on future financial, legal and medical issues while they still have mental capacity (11, 12). Disadvantages of (early) diagnosis of dementia include: fear or worries about the future due to an absence of curative treatment, possible discrimination or stigmatization, and the risk of misdiagnosis in an early stage of dementia (13, 14). Discussing advantages and disadvantages of dementia diagnosis with people with memory complaints (PwMC) and SOs facilitates a timely diagnosis. Timely diagnosis means that a diagnostic process is initiated at the right moment in time for the PwMC and their SO (i.e. the moment in time that they perceive they can benefit most from a diagnosis) (15). To explore the ‘timeliness’ of a diagnostic trajectory, preferences of PwMCs and their SOs should be considered by healthcare professionals (HCP) before the onset of the diagnostic process (15-17) in a process of shared decision making (SDM). SDM assumes that decisions should be influenced by exploring and respecting “what matters most” to patients and that this exploration in turn depends on patients developing informed preferences (18). The general practitioner (GP) is often the first HCP a PwMC visits to seek medical help (9). Therefore, GPs are
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