Dementia research has failed to produce disease modifying treatments and as a result, attention has shifted to the asymptomatic phases, with the aim of developing interventions for early disease and improving secondary prevention approaches. The identification of biomarkers that can help detect and track early disease is key to improving new drug development. In addition, there is a growing understanding of the impact and potential management of risk and protective factors on underlying disease, throughout the lifespan. Health services globally are adjusting to the shift in focus by implementing a ‘brain health’ approach and increased screening in high-risk groups.
It has become increasingly clear that diseases that progress into dementia have their origins in mid-life, so the identification of these prior to symptomatic stages may lead to the development of effective preventative and disease-modifying interventions. Consistently, researchers are striving to find sets of early biomarkers, which can recognize and track disease progress, that are accessible and cost-effective. If either primary and secondary prevention (or even delay of dementia onset) could be achieved via a combination of lifestyle modification and drug therapies, that would surely be one of the biggest health successes of this century.
We aim to summarize the current status of early biomarker, risk, and preventative factor identification via a variety of studies (genetic, imaging, and cohort studies etc.), as well as how these could be implemented in clinical settings internationally.
Areas of interest include, but are not limited to the following:
· Review articles on how various risk and preventative factors (whether biological, genetic, lifestyle, comorbidities etc.), affect preclinical/prodromal disease, including mechanistically.
· Review/Perspectives on the direction of dementia prevention, including how collaborative research efforts are expanding.
· New research around biomarkers and risk factors in cohort studies.
· Analytical methods in relation to progression of preclinical/prodromal disease.
· Clinical service research around brain health and adaptations of services to earlier disease models in differing clinical setting.
Dementia research has failed to produce disease modifying treatments and as a result, attention has shifted to the asymptomatic phases, with the aim of developing interventions for early disease and improving secondary prevention approaches. The identification of biomarkers that can help detect and track early disease is key to improving new drug development. In addition, there is a growing understanding of the impact and potential management of risk and protective factors on underlying disease, throughout the lifespan. Health services globally are adjusting to the shift in focus by implementing a ‘brain health’ approach and increased screening in high-risk groups.
It has become increasingly clear that diseases that progress into dementia have their origins in mid-life, so the identification of these prior to symptomatic stages may lead to the development of effective preventative and disease-modifying interventions. Consistently, researchers are striving to find sets of early biomarkers, which can recognize and track disease progress, that are accessible and cost-effective. If either primary and secondary prevention (or even delay of dementia onset) could be achieved via a combination of lifestyle modification and drug therapies, that would surely be one of the biggest health successes of this century.
We aim to summarize the current status of early biomarker, risk, and preventative factor identification via a variety of studies (genetic, imaging, and cohort studies etc.), as well as how these could be implemented in clinical settings internationally.
Areas of interest include, but are not limited to the following:
· Review articles on how various risk and preventative factors (whether biological, genetic, lifestyle, comorbidities etc.), affect preclinical/prodromal disease, including mechanistically.
· Review/Perspectives on the direction of dementia prevention, including how collaborative research efforts are expanding.
· New research around biomarkers and risk factors in cohort studies.
· Analytical methods in relation to progression of preclinical/prodromal disease.
· Clinical service research around brain health and adaptations of services to earlier disease models in differing clinical setting.
