The continuing scientific progress in Alzheimer's disease (AD) relies on the availability of patients and controls for study, the reliability of the clinical diagnoses of dementia, and the interchange and collaboration between investigators across disciplines working on different aspects of the illness. The main goal of the Clinical Research Development Core is to facilitate the genetic family studies and the other multidisciplinary efforts of the Bryan ADRC by providing the basic patient material needed for these investigations. There are four specific aims of the Clinical Core: 1) Provide diagnostic assessment of patients with memory complaints. We plan to focus on continued high quality patient evaluation. We also will continue to explore ways to extend our services"""""""" to African American elderly who have been under-represented in the Center. 2) Identify from the patient base, probands and families appropriate for genetic family studies of Alzheimer's disease. There are over 50 families enrolled in the center in which there is multigenerational evidence of AD with autopsy confirmation. We plan to continue to develop additional informative families and to evaluate these participants either in the Memory Disorders Clinic or, for patients convenience, in the home. 3) Facilitate clinical research studies of Alzheimer's disease. The Clinical Core will continue to be a resource to the research studies of the Bryan ADRC and to external studies approved by the Research Resource and Review Committee. We also aim to explore ways to enhance clinical diagnosis (e.g. computerized assessment, diagnostic algorithms) thereby optimizing the quality of the data provided to collaborators. 4) Conduct therapeutic drug intervention trials for Alzheimer's disease. With the advances in the biology of AD, we expect that whole new classes of compounds may become available for testing in the near future. We have a well developed infrastructure for recruiting patients into studies. Through the Research and Resource Review Committee of Core B we plan to continue to screen for promising drug protocols for patients with memory disorders.
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