NL
DE
Our purpose
We aim to encompass the burden of dementia on individuals with dementia and their caregivers (direct effects of the disease on quality of life, caregiver stress etc.) as well as the burden on society as a whole (e.g. health care costs).
Goals
- Unravel disease mechanisms that lead to Alzheimer, Vascular Dementia, and the complex interaction between these two (e.g. how vascular disease promotes Alzheimer disease, and how Alzheimer disease leads to cerebrovascular pathology);
- Improve diagnostics; examples range from health care evaluation (e.g. clinical use of MRI diagnostics, neuropsychological evaluation, memory clinic versus GP diagnosis, to more fundamental diagnostic research questions (e.g. how to identify patients with amyloid angiopathy, how to identify blood-brain barrier dysfunction);
- Develop prevention strategies: we propose that vascular interventions are a promising strategy to prevent both Alzheimer and Vascular dementia. Here we will collaborate with overlapping research programs that focus on vascular disease, exercise, and prevention, specifically Cerebrovascular Diseases, Prevention, Exercise-medicine, atherosclerosis and Thrombosis, but also Parkinson’s Disease;
- Improve dementia care. It is irrational to believe that dementia can be completely prevented or cured; we can reduce the prevalence, but given the growing number of people at risk (mostly due to the aging society), we must maintain a strong focus on how we can provide the best care for these patients and their family, in order to preserve quality of life as much as possible.
