Population - 56 year-old female with a history of Myocardial Infarction who is on Atorvastatin 80 mg daily
Intervention - Discontinue use of Atorvastatin
Comparison - Continue administering Atorvastatin
Outcome - Answer to her question: do statins cause memory loss, and should she discontinue usage?
Note that in this example it is not necessary to build search concepts for each individual PICO element. A more advisable approach is to consider the most important elements and whether or not multiple elements can be combined into a single concept. In this case, elements I and C can be combined because both concern Atorvastatin. Therefore, our three concepts are Atorvastatin, females/women, and memory loss. Note that I shortened O to "memory loss." This was done to convert it into a single concept; searching for "causes" can be vague, whereas "memory loss" is a medical condition.
