Core Description: The Education and Information Transfer Core (EITC) leads outreach, recruitment, and retention activities that support the Boston University Alzheimer Disease Center's (BU ADC) clinical research portfolio. In addition, the EITC provides Alzheimer's disease (AD)-related education to both professional and lay audiences. During the current funding cycle, the EITC has developed two specialized areas that complement its Core functions, including: (1) developing and implementing innovative programs to increase our African American participants'involvement in the Center's brain donation program, and (2) enhancing our Center's long-standing professional education focus with the successful replication of a medical student education program developed by our Northwestern University EITC colleagues. The BU-based program (known locally as the PAIRS Program) partners first-year students with community-based patients with early stage AD for an experiential learning opportunity. These two areas of specialization will continue into the proposed renewal period and are well integrated into our EITC specific aims for the next cycle. Specifically, we aim to: (1) Facilitate and evaluate outreach efforts in the recruitment, referral, and retention of participants in the BU ADC research registry and BU ADC-sponsored clinical research projects with an emphasis on the recruitment and retention of individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and earlystage AD and the recruitment of African American participants into the Center's brain donation program;(2) Provide lay audience education about AD and related disorders through community-based outreach in collaboration with other BU ADC Cores and community partners;and (3) Facilitate education and a high quality training environment for professionals at all career levels interested in clinical and translational research and the clinical care of individuals with MCI, AD, and related disorders.
These aims will be met through numerous academic and community partnerships, professional and lay audience educational events, formal professional education programs, a biannual newsletter, and an active and highly-utilized website.
Providing clinicians with knowledge and tools for assessment and early diagnosis of elders at risk can help facilitate appropriate treatment. Additionally, family and lay audience education about early memory loss can empower elders and their loved ones to seek clinical care for memory problems.
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