Their report - The Edinburgh Consensus, published in Alzheimer's Research and Therapy – relates to the search for a new generation of disease-modifying drugs that are aimed at tackling the early underlying biological causes of dementia. It highlights a crucial need for new strategies to diagnose and treat the condition in light of significant challenges that health services will face in future.
Disease-modifying drugs are based on evidence that Alzheimer’s disease has its roots in middle age, with changes in the brain occurring many years before the final symptoms of dementia develop. This offers a window during which treatment could limit brain damage before the development of dementia. Delaying the emergence of these symptoms by a few years would have a huge impact on the number of people affected by dementia.
Identifying people who are most likely to benefit from early intervention will require gathering specialist information such as genetics and brain scan imaging, which current services cannot deliver on the required scale, experts say.
The Edinburgh Consensus was led by Prof Craig Ritchie and Dr Tom Russ from CCBS, with Prof Martin Rossor (UCL) and Prof Alistair Burns (University of Manchester). It was written by Alzheimer’s disease researchers and clinicians from UK universities alongside the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the Association of British Neurologists and the charities Alzheimer Scotland, Alzheimer’s Society and Alzheimer’s Research UK.