Community-based Brain Health Program to Address Dementia Risk (C-BBHP)

PROJECT SUMMARY The goal of the current Phase I proposal is to further develop (to pivotal trial readiness) and evaluate a community-based Brain Health Program to address dementia risk (C-BBHP) that includes multiple intervention modalities affecting diet, exercise and cognitive health designed to extend older adults’ functional independence and improve cognitive performance. This intervention may benefit a large population of vulnerable older adults that are at risk for dementia with current lack of long-term viable treatment options. Dementia is the most expensive medical condition in the U.S. Presently, 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. Thus, implementing scalable interventions to prevent functional dependence and dementia is of critical importance to overall public health. Here, we propose to complete the development and testing of an innovative multimodal brain health program, administered in communities via the broad network of the YMCA. 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 support a large scale randomized controlled trial in Phase II designed to establish medical efficacy of this program for older adults with dementia risk.