Community-based Brain Health Program to Reduce Dementia Risk-BHP
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PROJECT SUMMARY The goal of the current Phase II proposal is to conduct a pivotal randomized controlled trial (RCT) to evaluate our novel community-based Brain Health Program (BHP) that was designed to address and reduce dementia risk versus a control condition comprised of health education written materials - provided for self- study – and that address the same validated lifestyle modifications shown to reduce risk of dementia. The BHP includes multiple intervention modalities affecting diet, exercise and cognitive enhancement approaches that in addition to reducing risk of dementia may also extend older adults’ functional independence and improve cognitive capacity. The importance of this project cannot be overstated as more than 5 million Americans are diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease (AD), the most common form of dementia, and prevalence is expanding as our population ages. In addition to the obvious health and quality-of-life ramifications of dementia, there are high economic costs: dementia is the most expensive medical condition in the U.S. Thus, implementing scalable interventions to prevent functional decline, dependence and dementia is of critical importance to overall public health. Here, we propose to conduct a large RCT of our innovative multimodal Brain Health Program, administered in communities via the broad network of the YMCA at several locations across the U.S. The program is comprised of interventions to improve cognitive function and bolster functional abilities in patients with dementia risk. At the completion of this project we will have outcomes data sufficient to establish medical efficacy of this program for older adults with dementia risk.
