The ‘Deep and Frequent Phenotyping’ Study hopes to produce new ways of diagnosing dementia before symptoms even arise.

Aims of the Study

We urgently need new and better treatments that can be given to patients as early as possible to prevent brain damage associated with dementia.

Researchers want to do studies before brain damage has progressed so that they can identify measures – sometimes called biomarkers – that can indicate change even when a person has no apparent symptoms.

These biomarkers would make it possible to target treatment in the early ‘pre-clinical’ phase before a patient begins to suffer from dementia symptoms.

This is a feasibility study to determine how acceptable a very intensive testing schedule is to patients with mild Alzheimer’s dementia.

The researchers want to develop a full study based on these results so they can search for biomarkers that will enable them to monitor dementia progression and target therapies.

Assessments will include various cognitive (memory and thinking) assessments, physical assessments, an ophthalmological assessment (eye test), brain imaging, electroencephalography (EEG; painless tracing of electrical activity along the scalp) and evaluation of the whole trial process.

The study will also look at the way you move with gait assessments, and take spinal, blood and urine samples.

The researchers will collect feedback on the whole process from participants. This will help them prepare for the full study and work out what assessments patients with mild Alzheimer’s disease would find acceptable and how many of them would be tolerable.

Taking part in research

This study is looking for people aged between 55 to 80 years of age who have very early or mild Alzheimer’s dementia.

The study asks that people taking part also have a study partner who will be able to accompany you to all visits. This must be someone who knows you well and sees you at least 3 times per week.

Follow the sign-up link on the right to ‘Join dementia research’ and see if you are eligible for this and other studies available.