On 28 February, Alzheimer Europe has published the 41st edition of its Dementia in Europe magazine, filled with interesting updates on European and national policy developments in the dementia field, as well as European research projects and other research news. Interviews with people at the forefront of care, research, policy and advocacy, and articles about some of the issues currently faced by people living with dementia in Europe are also included.
The first section of the magazine features an article on the Pattern-Cog project. Our project coordinator Jussi Tohka presents the overall vision of Pattern-Cog. This edition has been published both electronically and in paper format. You can download the magazine, here.
“The overarching goal of the Pattern-Cog project is to improve dementia prevention strategies by developing and validating a personalised medicine methodology for the detection of earliest signs of impending cognitive decline and markers, to enable early and personalised multidomain interventions.”
“Pattern-Cog will combine data from several relatively routine measures (e.g., magnetic resonance imaging, neuropsychological testing, and risk factors) to develop the prediction methodology that we describe as a personalised aging pattern. The innovative aspect of the method development is that the personalised aging pattern is trained based on data from cognitively healthy individuals. To develop and validate the method, we will use several existing databases, including a large observational study of healthy aging (“Vallecas Study”) and dementia intervention/prevention trials (e.g., FINGER, MIND-ADmini). Ethical, legal, and social aspects of dementia prediction and prevention are essential components of the project. Pattern-Cog will help answer relevant questions about the management of research data in multinational studies of personalised medicine in dementia. Equally important is understanding the views and concerns of people with cognitive impairment and dementia regarding algorithm-based prediction of future cognitive decline. Even as clinical tools are being developed, Pattern-cog will organise public engagement activities to understand how best to communicate the results of risk assessments based on algorithmic approaches.”
Jussi, Tohka, Pattern-Cog Project Coordinator
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Follow the project to stay up-to-date about project’s activities: https://linktr.ee/patterncog
