Creating Innovative Ways to Improve Alzheimer Disease Prevention: Miia Kivipelto, MD, PhD

WATCH TIME: 4 minutes

"I think we have enough evidence that we can move on with the implementation activity. We still need to refine our evidence and do more high quality randomized trials, but at the same time, increasing awareness about brain health and continuing on with this implementation."

As the Alzheimer disease (AD) community continues to build towards disease-modifying therapies, a lot of the focus has been on prevention, considering the rising age of the overall population. Led by Miia Kivipelto, MD, PhD, the FINGERS trial was the first randomized controlled study that showed its possible to prevent cognitive decline using a multidomain lifestyle intervention among older at-risk individuals. The multidomain intervention combined several lifestyle changes in parallel, including diet, exercise, cognitive training, social stimulation, and vascular risk management, over a 24-month period.

Kivipelto, a professor of clinical geriatric epidemiology at Karolinska Institutet, presented several analyses from FINGERS at the 2022 Clinical Trials on Alzheimer’s Disease (CTAD) conference, held November 29 to December 2, in San Francisco, California. Among them included one specific subgroup analysis that showed that serum brain-derived neurotrophic factor in its precursor form (proBDNF) predicts memory gains after patients undergo these lifestyle changes. Ultimately, the findings suggest that proBDNF may have a key role in molecular processes underlying memory, thus adding to the expanding knowledge of preservation and prevention.

Kivipelto sat down with NeurologyLive^® at the conference to discuss the direction of prevention-related research and the unanswered questions that still remain. She stressed the need for additional large-scale studies, as well as the need for collaborating data on prevention, early detection, and treatment decisions. Additionally, she touched on the innovative ways the clinical community can address prevention, outside of promoting healthy lifestyle changes.