Dementia, Europe launches a Mega-Project to map all risk factors and develop early interventions to slow the disease

An ongoing project aims to discover all the genetic, environmental, and behavioral risk factors for dementia, especially Alzheimer's disease, identifying and planning interventions, thus maximizing the chances of prevention and early treatment. The project will allow the development of models based on artificial intelligence: this is the heart of COMFORTage, an international project involving, within the framework of Horizon, 13 European countries, with Italian scientists who coordinate it. The project was recently presented in an international meeting at the Catholic University, Rome campus - IRCCS Fondazione Policlinico Gemelli, organized by Prof. Camillo Marra, of the Department of Psychology at the Catholic University and director of the Clinical Memory Unit.

And it is precisely the Memory Clinic that has the role of coordinating all countries, as well as directing the research program and the implementation of the 13 different intervention programs that will be activated in Europe. The project, with a total funding of 19 million euros, also involves Gemelli Generator and Gemelli Digital Medicine & Health of the Policlinico Gemelli, that have a role in the development of artificial intelligence systems in data management. The project, in fact, is destined to collect a huge dataset, which will open up new scenarios and provide new knowledge in the prevention and treatment of dementia. Professor Marra said: “COMFORTage involves 29 centers in Europe with the aim of recruiting over 4000 patients (of which 300 will be Italian) and identifying the main risk factors for Alzheimer's and promoting the intervention of innovative rehabilitation and prevention systems based on new technologies, artificial intelligence, andvirtual reality”.

Dementia represents the most important clinical emergency in the elderly. Due to the aging population, the frequency of dementia represents an almost epidemic condition, with 12 million people affected in Europe and about 1.5 million in Italy. Alzheimer's disease accounts for 50% of all forms of dementia. Now there are no cures to stop the progression of the disease, and the existing drugs only allow the control of symptoms, moreover, for limited periods of time. On the contrary, increasingly convincing scientific evidence has confirmed that early intervention on lifestyles and rehabilitation carried out in the initial stages of the disease can postpone the onset of the disease in at-risk individuals or slow its progression in affected individuals.

The scientists in the COMFORTage consortium aim to activate screening interventions on the healthy population, either by selecting individuals with a subjectively perceived cognitive deficit, or people in early stages of the disease. They will formulate risk maps and implement disease prevention interventions by using the most advanced technological acquisitions, innovative tools ranging from immersive reality techniques to the application of intervention models assisted by artificial intelligence. The consortium foresees the participation of technological and clinical partners who will be tasked with planning the best-personalized treatments in the different forms of dementia. Prof. Marra explained: "At the end of these four years, it will be possible to obtain new knowledge of the genetic, neurophysiological, and biological mechanisms that determine an increased risk of Alzheimer's disease; personalized risk maps will be defined that will allow the identification of subjects in the preclinical phase of dementia (without symptoms), and finally, personalized prevention interventions can be implemented also through the use of new technological support tools for patients and families". The goal is to create a large European dataset on which to collect a large amount of information that will allow for a more precise definition of who is really at risk of disease and what are the most effective non-pharmacological preventive interventions to slow down, postpone or even block the progression of dementia. Professor Marra concluded: “The role of artificial intelligence in managing big data is crucial to the success of the project, and the collaboration of Gemelli Generator and Gemelli Digital Medicine & Health with the other European data management partners will be crucial in defining risk identification algorithms, disease prediction, and prevention”.