Season 5: Episode 1: Offering certainty – Biomarkers, diagnosis and dementia

Dr. Mari DeMarco, Ph.D., is a researcher at the University of British Columbia concerned with how the diagnoses of neurodegenerative diseases can be improved by discovering and using biomarkers. Led a study on biomarkers. Her lab aims to create better tools for the timely diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease, frontotemporal degeneration, and related disorders and make these tools easily accessible to those that need them.

Dr. DeMarco talks about the use of the amyloid beta peptide and tau biomarkers in dementia and specifically Alzheimer's Disease and the results of the one arm of the Impact-AD study on clinical management. These two biomarkers are found in cerebral spinal fluid. They offer patients and healthcare providers a definitive diagnosis of Alzheimer's Disease, something that previously eluded many individuals. 

The analysis offered by Dr. DeMarco's lab at St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver is available in Canada to consulting physicians, i.e., neurologists, geriatricians, and psychiatrists, who think that a patient who has symptoms of dementia would benefit from the test. It is not a screening test for people without symptoms.

Additional Information: 

Information about the study can be found: at https://www.impactad.org/resources.

A presentation by Dr. Demarco on what a biomarker is at https://www.impactad.org/post/2020-alzheimer-update.

 

For additional resources, please visit the Resource page on the Dementia Dialogue website (https://www.dementiadialogue.ca/resources-1) and choose Biomarkers from the left navigation panel.

Roche Canada sponsors this episode.