Faculty Brown Bag - Would you want to know? Disclosing Risk of Alzheimer’s Disease Dementia to Healthy Older Adults

Would you want to know? Disclosing Risk of Alzheimer’s Disease Dementia to Healthy Older Adults 

Jessica Mozersky

Funded by the National Institute on Aging, WeSHARE is a research study examining the impact of returning research results that indicate risk of developing Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) dementia to healthy older adults taking part in a longitudinal cohort of aging. The study is examining the psychosocial and cognitive impact of learning one’s risk of developing AD dementia, the impact on family members or study partners, and the reasons people decline to learn this information. An innovation of the study is that we are returning 5 year absolute risk of developing AD dementia based on multiple research results: PET amyloid, MRI, and APOE genetic status. By providing personalized risk estimates based on their own research results, our goal is to provide meaningful and understandable information to interested participants, while respecting people’s right not to know.