Dementia Awareness Day: COMFORTage Pilot 8
On Friday the 27th of June, the Cyprus Institute of Neurology and Genetics and the Nicosia Municipality co-organised a dementia awareness day. People from different age groups gathered to learn more about dementia, the ongoing research and advancements in the field. The role of CING in dementia research and more specifically its contribution in COMFORTage via Pilot 8 was explained.
Expert Talks on Prevention, Risk Factors and Big Data
In the series of talks, the Senior Neurologist and Head of the Neuroepidemiology Department of CING Dr Eleni Zamba-Papanicolaou, introduced dementia and Alzheimer’s disease in particular. She discussed a number of the modifiable risk factors contributing to the development of dementia and the available drugs used for the disease, while highlighting the importance of early prevention. This was followed by a second talk given by the Department of Bioinformatics Head, Professor George Spyrou. He discussed the utilization of big data for advancing our understanding of complex diseases including dementia, and elaborated on the bridging between Medicine and Natural Sciences in regards to large-scale computational analyses to unveil complex biological patterns and disease pathways.
Spotlight on Dysphagia and Patient Wellbeing
Furthermore, the speech language pathologist and researcher Dr Astero Constantinou, highlighted the role of her profession in the well-being of the patients as well as a common- yet overlooked- aspect of dementia, dysphagia. Dysphagia, which is the difficulty in swallowing, is highly understudied leading to malnutrition faster due to late diagnosis. Dysphagia biomarkers will be analytically assessed in the context of CING’s Pilot 8. Finally, the Municipality’s representative spoke about the different programmes currently running to support older people and their carers. At the end of the session, the audience had the opportunity to ask questions which were answered by the speakers and expressed their interest in the COMFORTage project.
During the event we had the pleasure of hosting the COMFORTage Project Coordinator Dr George Manias, the Scientific Manager of COMFORTage Dr Athos Antoniades as well as the post-doctoral researcher Dr Constantinos Stylianou representing the Cyprus Technological University (CUT). Our partners had the opportunity to discuss with the participants. For the closing remarks, Dr Manias underlined the people-centric approach of COMFORTage and the need for personalized solutions for dementia which still remains prevalent in all the populations around the world.
**Article written by Dr Soteroulla Ellina and Dr Elena Loizidou, from CING a key partner in the COMFORTage project.
