DetectCID to focus on methods for use in primary care and other everyday clinical settings
The steering committee for The Consortium for Detecting Cognitive Impairment, Including Dementia (DetectCID), recently held its kickoff meeting. The goal of the consortium is to establish, test, and validate methods for detecting cognitive impairment in the general public, including health disparities populations.
This five-year program was developed by the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) in collaboration with the National Institute on Aging (NIA). The program consists of three research groups working through a Cross-Consortium Coordinating Team (CCCT) led by Katherine L. Possin, Ph.D., associate professor in residence of the Department of Neurology at the University of California, San Francisco Memory and Aging Center.
“Under-detection of cognitive impairment, including dementia is a major problem that leads to delays in diagnosis and appropriate treatments,” said Dr. Possin. Our consortium is developing methods to address this problem in all kinds of clinical settings, and our brief assessments, which are less than 10 minutes, are designed to work with patients from a variety of cultural backgrounds.”
Cognitive impairment and dementia often go undetected and undiagnosed due to the lack of easy-to-use methods in primary care and other everyday clinical settings. This is particularly an issue for health disparities populations in the United States such as older African-Americans and Hispanics, where under-detection of cognitive impairment occurs more commonly than in older white patient populations.
“There is an unmet need to detect cognitive impairment and dementia in large and diverse populations across the United States,” said Roderick Corriveau, Ph.D., program director, NINDS. “This consortium will provide a collaborative network for testing and implementing new clinical paradigms to detect cognitive impairment, including dementia, in everyday care.”
Initially, the consortium-funded projects will focus on developing and standardizing approaches that can be applied broadly across patient populations in the United States. The second phase, which is expected to begin in approximately two years, will focus on testing and optimizing validated methods across multiple consortium sites.
“Our overall goal is to improve the frequency and quality of detection across large and varied patient groups, including health disparities populations,” said Dr. Corriveau.
The steering committee for the consortium is made up of the principal investigators of funded projects and the project staff from the NIH. This committee will provide leadership and strategic direction for the consortium and coordinate with other researchers and stakeholders.
Projects supported by DetectCID include:
Katherine L. Possin, Ph.D.
University of California, San Francisco
The UCSF brain health assessment for the detection of cognitive impairment among diverse populations in primary care
Richard Gershon, Ph.D. and Michael Wolf, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Northwestern University at Chicago
MyCog - rapid detection of cognitive impairment in everyday clinical settings
Joe Verghese, M.B.B.S.
Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, N.Y.
5-Cog battery to improve detection of cognitive impairment and dementia
DetectCID
Mind Your Risks
Hope Through Research- Dementia
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
National Institute on Aging
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The NINDS (http://www.ninds.nih.gov) is the nation’s leading funder of research on the brain and nervous system. The mission of NINDS is to seek fundamental knowledge about the brain and nervous system and to use that knowledge to reduce the burden of neurological disease.
About the National Institute on Aging: The NIA leads the federal government effort conducting and supporting research on aging and the health and well-being of older people. It provides information on age-related cognitive change and neurodegenerative disease specifically at its Alzheimer's Disease Education and Referral (ADEAR) Center at www.nia.nih.gov/alzheimers.
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov.