As part of the A4 Study Team, Great Lakes Clinical Trials is proud to contribute to an important article released in the peer-reviewed Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Neurology. The article entitled, “Short-term Psychological Outcomes of Disclosing Amyloid Imaging Results to Research Participants Who Do Not Have Cognitive Impairment” was published on August 10, 2020 and a link to the article can be found by clicking the image below.
“The key question posed in this publication is whether information about a person’s increased risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease can be safely shared,'“ commented Steve Satek, President of Great Lakes Clinical Trials. “Through innovative PET Scan technology, researchers now have the ability to look inside a living human’s brain and see if there are silent changes going on that may be a precursor to Alzheimer’s disease. These changes can happen decades before memory loss starts to take hold and can determine a person’s future risk for progressing to Alzheimer’s disease.”
Study Conclusion: In this observational preclinical AD study, participants who learned they had elevated amyloid levels and a great risk for developing Alzheimer’s, did not experience short-term negative psychological issues compared with persons who learned they did not have elevated amyloid levels.
The questions we often get asked about learning these risk results are:
Why would someone want to know their risk of developing Alzheimer’s?
if I have an increased risk, what can I do about it?
There are steps you can take today to support a healthier brain and potentially slow down the effects of normal aging. These include things like eating a Mediterranean diet, getting a full night’s sleep, and socializing with family and friends. Great Lakes Clinical Trials has promoted these activities through their Brain Health Video Series, which can be found here.
In addition, people at higher risk for developing Alzheimer’s can join clinical research studies to assess whether new innovative treatments can minimize or eliminate that risk. A list of studies being conducted by Great Lakes Clinical Trials can be found here.
“One thing we know for certain, is that doing nothing will not help alter the course of the memory loss,” commented Satek. “Taking simple brain-healthy steps in your day to day life is important - and joining a clinical trial may not only help change your risk, but the information gained in the study will help in the development of therapies for future generations.”