Research Projects

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is an ever-increasing public health concern among the aging population and is the most common form of dementia affecting more than 15 million individuals worldwide and around 5 million Europeans. The direct and indirect costs of AD and other dementias amount to more than €440,000 million each year (www.alz.org, 2010).Even...

In the absence of a cure for dementia, most research is aimed at an early diagnosis as it opens the way to timely future care and treatment, and can help people take control of their lives and plan ahead. However, people with moderate to severe dementia and their carers are often not receiving services of the type, quality and timing that they need...

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a heterogeneous disease in which multiple detrimental factors contribute to cognitive loss and disease escalation. Currently there are no effective therapies for AD. Targeting any single symptom of disease-escalating factor (e.g. amyloid beta, tau, neuroinflammation etc.), even if successful, is not sufficient to modify...

Neurodegenerative diseases include Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, frontotemporal dementia, corticobasal degeneration, multiple system atrophy and progressive supranuclear palsy. We currently classify and treat these conditions based on symptoms and clinical findings. Although this approach seems logical, it...

DEMTEST has established a large European and global collaboration between national surveillance units and dementia research centres, facilitating cooperation between neurologists, neuropathologists and neuroscientists. We work on standardisation of tests that are currently available and harmonise their use between centers worldwide. We define...

Neurodegenerative disorders, represented mostly by Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Parkinson's disease (PD), are characterised by progressive neuronal impairment and death. In spite of the brain's known capacity for regeneration, lost neurons generally cannot be replaced. Therefore, drugs aimed at inhibiting neurodegenerative processes are likely to...

The objective of CARELINK is to deliver a tracking solution that addresses the issue of wandering in People with Dementia (PwD), allowing carers to monitor PwD. Using current machine-learning technologies we will profile user routes that can then be used to build a repository of route patterns to be compared against live routes, thus allowing for...

The objective of the Coordination Action JUMPAHEAD is to support the implementation of the pilot Joint Programming Initiative on combating neurodegenerative diseases, in particular Alzheimer’s disease (JPND). Neurodegenerative disorders are incurable and debilitating conditions that result in progressive degeneration or death of nerve cells. Of...

The increase in average lifespan across the world has been accompanied by an unprecedented upsurge in the occurrence of dementia with high socio-economic costs. The development of personal health systems provides a means of dealing with such problems in a meaningful and sustainable manner, enabling persons with dementia to maintain independence and...

The main aim of DISTINCT will develop a premier quality multi-disciplinary, multi-professional and intersectorial education and training research framework for Europe aimed at improving technology and care for people with dementia and their carers, and to use coherent themes an.d interrelated ESRs within DISTINCT to provide the evidence to show how...

As the use of nanoparticles becomes more prevalent, it is clear that human exposure will inevitably increase. Considering the rapidly ageing European population and the resulting increase in the incidence of neurodegenerative diseases, there is an urgent need to address the risk presented by nanoparticles towards neurodegenerative diseases. It is...

The last two decades have witnessed the increasing role of patient, user and civil society organizations (POs and CSOs) in the production of knowledge on diseases and health problems. Rich and detailed studies have shown that this phenomenon entails new forms of activism. It also questions the modes of governance of knowledge, as well as the role...