More than 300 participants have taken part in the project of the Clinical Research Unit for the Prevention of Dementia, which has been carried out for three years by the Barcelonaβeta Brain Research Center (BBRC). The aim of the study was to investigate whether there is a biological basis associated with the calculated risk algorithm and to offer participants a personalised action plan to try to reduce this risk. The project also studied the possible emotional impact that individually revealing this percentage of risk of developing dementia in 5 years' time may have.
The participants, people between 60 and 80 years of age who experienced a subjective decline in memory or other cognitive abilities, but without a diagnosis of Alzheimer's or other dementias, were seen by a neurologist who collected their medical history and underwent cognitive and neuroimaging tests. From this information, an algorithm was applied to calculate the estimated percentage risk of developing dementia in the following 5 years. The preselection of potential participants was done through a registration website that contained algorithms to determine which people were, a priori, candidates to participate. After this initial selection, candidates were contacted by telephone to thoroughly assess their eligibility and schedule the baseline study visit.
The final analysis of the study data is expected by the end of the year, but the interim analysis carried out during 2021 with approximately half of the participants has shown that the web-based registration system is efficient for recruiting people with subjective memory complaints. Furthermore, the data also suggest that disclosing the percentage of risk of developing dementia has no emotional impact by measuring levels of depression or anxiety. Finally, the results show that personalized clinical structures, such as this Research Unit, are of great value since more than half of the participants were able to be offered other clinical studies to benefit from based on their specific risk profile.
