Shortly after officially opening its Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, the University of Alabama at Birmingham announced receiving a $21.4 million federal grant to expand its dementia research efforts.
The five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will further research of dementia disparities in the U.S. Southeast region, which carry a 20% to 30% higher risk of Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of dementia, according to UAB researchers.
The U.S. Southeast and West regions. are projected to have the “largest percentage increase in people with Alzheimer’s dementia between 2019 and 2025,” according to the latest Alzheimer’s Disease Facts and Figures report by the Alzheimer’s Association.
“We hope to use the data collected through the ADRC to translate research findings into advances in the care, treatment, and prevention of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia,” Erik Roberson, M.D., Ph.D., Rebecca Gale-Heersink endowed chair in the UAB Department of Neurology and the center director, said in the news release.
Since 2020, the UAB research team has investigated the biomarkers of Alzheimer’s disease in blood and eyes, along with “electronic measures” to enhance cognitive testing to make it more accessible to patients, while also investigating new imaging tests to understand the disease.
The team has also researched the effects of race and social determinants of health as they relate to dementia risk.
“Racial disparities in dementia are a large focus of the ADRC, with the risk of late-onset Alzheimer’s disease twice as high in the Black population,” Roberson said. “But we are also investigating the question of why the Deep South as a whole has a higher risk of dementia.”
The new center that recently opened is aimed at meeting the increasing needs of those with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia in Alabama, and the center is the only location of its kind across Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.
In April, as reported by Memory Care Business, UAB opened its dementia research hub, a 20,000 square-foot center within the UAB Callahan Eye Hospital. The center will focus on the prevention, research, and clinical care of cognitive decline with 60 employees ranging from neurologists, nurses, nurse care managers, pharmacy specialists, social workers, and more.
Initial plans for the new center were drafted in 2019 to address dementia and cognitive decline increasing among older adults.
