Researchers from more than thirty institutions in the Netherlands started this week with the project ABOARD (A personalized medicine approach for Alzheimer’s disease). The UMCG and the Alzheimercentrum Groningen are also participating.
The research should provide information on how to stop Alzheimer’s, even before the disease shows itself. Alzheimer’s develops over a period of twenty to thirty years. “We have to reach people who are at risk of getting the disease,” says Wiesje van der Flier, project leader at ABOARD. “And we all are actually those people.”
Researchers will therefore develop new tests to be able to recognize the first brain changes caused by the disease. This should lead to a clear profile for the course of the disease in a particular patient, so that the best treatment can be given immediately. “An important focus of the research is to arrive at a personalized, tailor-made treatment,” says Barbara van Munster, professor of geriatric medicine at the UMCG.
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