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Aerial view of South America Population map
Project
Project Type - Pilot Projects

Towards a Latin American Approach to Dementia Networking

Enhancing strategic initiatives to combat dementia in Latin American countries
Latin America & Caribbean

Overview

Dementia poses many challenges for Latin American countries (LACs), such as socioeconomic status (SES) heterogeneity, reduced networking, genetic isolates, insufficient number of trained professionals, and incipient national plans. This scenario prompted this proposal, aimed to develop a focused LACs network by establishing a platform for more effective diagnosis, collaboration, and research of dementia. We propose to accomplish this by developing two Aims and four Outputs: A shared, curated manual for clinical dementia diagnosis (Output 1) and accompanying software platform (Output 2) to house a LACs dementia registry. An established leadership framework (executive committee of regional leaders and a knowledge-to-action framework, NTAF, (Output 3) facilitated by a website (Output 4) for networking and promoting global visibility.

Project Details

The proposed plan will support the applicant’s primary long-term goal and that of the GBHI, to generate a regional Latin-American approach, to improve dementia diagnosis, and to promote local initiatives in LACs that facilitate brain health equity. The proposed work will be synergistically integrated with ongoing projects, allowing us to expand prior initiatives to additional countries and combine isolated efforts in the region to promote collaboration and cohesion.

We will leverage the applicant’s currently obtained grants (R01 and an Inter-American Development Bank, IDB) and an existing network (Latin-American and Caribbean consortium on dementia, LAC-CD) to establish a comprehensive, integrative, and harmonized framework. The current proposal will enhance regional engagement of faculty and fellows from GBHI, additional regional mentors, and global institutions (Alzheimer’s Association, IDB, Atlantic programs, and regional centers). We anticipate that the four proposed outcomes will lay the foundation for future, larger applications that will support the implementation of regional strategic initiatives to combat dementia in LACs.