The Clinical Core promotes Alzheimer's disease (AD) research by providing a cohort of well-characterized subjects who participate in AD related research and by providing biologic samples and autopsy material for clinical and pathologic studies. This is facilitated by initiatives within the Clinical Core focused in the following six areas: 1) identification and characterization of clinically relevant biomarkers of neurodegenerative dementia pathology 2) improvements in the methods to accurately diagnosis dementia at its earliest stage, 3) characterization of pathologically relevant clinical variables, 4) development of methods to accurately measure pathologically driven rates of change, 5), evaluation of new treatments and 5) contributions to collaborative AD related research efforts, especially those related to genetic factors that alter the risk for neurodegenerative dementia. These initiatives will be accomplished over the next 5 years by continuing to develop and maintain a well-characterized and longitudinally evaluated cohort of English and Spanish speaking patients with a variety of neurodegenerative dementing illness and cognitively normal control objects. Standardized instruments will be used to assess clinical features of the illnesses including age of onset, the presence of psychosis, alterations in mood, quantitative measurements of cognitive and functional impairment and quantitative anatomical and metabolic brain imaging. Biologic samples, including DNA, will e obtained from consenting participants. All subjects will be encouraged to permit a brain autopsy for clinical-pathological correlation and to provide tissue for research studies. The Clinical Core will continue to provide relevant demographic and clinical variables to the National Alzheimer's Coordinating Center and to collaborate with researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, other Alzheimer's Disease Centers and other qualified institutions in order to maximize the efficient use of both the clinical information and biological material collected. Through the accomplishment of these goals the Clinical Core will promote the acquisition of new knowledge and improve the standard of care for patients with Alzheimer's disease and related neurodegenerative dementing conditions and the families who care for them.
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