CLINICAL UPDATE ON ALZHEIMERS DISEASE AND OTHER DEMENTIAS

Course overview

The INR Seminar "Clinical Update on Alzheimers Disease and Other Dementias" will focus on the group of disorders that produce the clinical condition of dementia where brain functioning and behavior is disrupted to the point where an individual is unable to perform normal activities of daily living. How the brain functions to produce behavior will be described along with how the brain is impaired and altered by dementing disorders to produce cognitive impairment. The major cells of the brain, neurons and glia, will be described along with how they are disabled and terminated by various dementias, often by producing damaging proteins that impair and destroy neurons. Normal aging and resulting mild cognitive decline in three major areas of cognitive functioning will be discussed along with researched based methods to slow this process and even show improvements. The characteristics of age related pre dementia conditions like age associated memory impairment and mild cognitive impairment will be outlined along with possible treatments and the relative risk of each to progress to dementia. The general criteria for dementia will be compared and contrasted to normal aging. Many, if not most, people with dementia have more than one disorder causing the condition. There will be a detailed discussion of the large number of conditions that can produce dementia but then can be significantly improved or even reversed, including traumatic brain injury, stroke, sleep disorders, medication effects, metabolic disorders, and hydrocephalus. Some dementia conditions that can occur quickly and may be either partially reversible or have permanent impairment like herpes simplex encephalopathy and alcohol dementia syndrome will be described. The age related irreversible progressive dementias that occur mostly in older age and tend to get worse over time are the disorders that are most commonly associated with dementia. A sobering fact is that, to this date, none of these dementias have any cures or any treatments that stop their progression. The causes, symptoms, course, life impacts, complications, and current treatments of several of these progressive dementias will be analyzed and described. These dementias will include some rarer conditions like variant Creutzfeldt Jakob "mad cow" disease, Huntingtons disease, and progressive supranuclear palsy. The more prevalent dementias will be covered in detail with updated research findings, including frontotemporal dementias, chronic traumatic encephalopathy, Parkinsons disease dementia and dementia with Lewy bodies, and vascular dementia. The most detailed presentation will be a clinical update on the most prevalent of the progressive dementias, Alzheimers disease, including current directions in research on potential treatments.