Medical experts from around the world gathered at The Eden Roc Hotel on Friday, April 29 and Saturday, April 30, to discuss the latest breakthroughs in Alzheimer’s Disease treatment and diagnosis at the 9th annual Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) Symposium hosted by Mount Sinai Medical Center. The annual symposium aims to provide a forum for new information and in-depth discussions about advances in research related to the clinical diagnosis and progression of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). This year’s symposium emphasized the early stages of AD and presented results from several longitudinal and cross-sectional studies that explored risk factors, diagnosis and progression of Alzheimer’s, mild cognitive impairment and dementia.
Dr. Ranjan Duara, Director of The Mount Sinai Wien Center for Alzheimer’s Disease and Memory Disorders and host of the event, stresses the importance of early diagnosis of the disease. “Part of our discussions at this symposium is about determining how doctors can detect the disease in its earliest stages, just like we detect high cholesterol in people’s blood and start treating high cholesterol whether or not patients have any symptoms. The same goes for treating Alzheimer’s early so we can prevent the disease from escalating.“
International experts from the United States, Australia, France, England, Canada, and Netherlands gave presentations on various topics related to Alzheimer’s diagnosis, treatment and research. This year’s keynote speakers were Dr. Christopher Rowe, Director of Medicine from the University of Melbourne, Australia whose presentation was titled “Early Diagnosis of AD – Now and the Future”, and Dr. Bruno Dubois, Professor at the Federation de Neurologie Hospital de la Salpetriere in Paris, France whose presentation was titled “Rationale for Prodromal and Preclinical AD Criteria”. Doctors also participated and exchanged ideas in three mini-symposiums: Risk Factor for Progression from Normal Aging to MCI and Dementia; Studies in Preclinical AD: Diagnosis and Progression; and Studies in Prodromal AD: Diagnosis and Risk for Progression.
Unless ways are found to prevent Alzheimer’s or delay its onset, it is projected that 13 million people in the U.S. will have Alzheimer’s Disease by 2050. Since the development of criteria for AD twenty-five years ago, major advances in our understanding of the biology and early clinical features of AD have led to improvement in clinical assessments which have enabled clinicians to diagnose an earlier stage of the illness, mild cognitive impairment (MCI). The Mount Sinai Wien Center for Alzheimer’s Disease and Memory Disorders along with Dr. Duara will continue to host this annual symposium so physicians from all over the world will have a forum to present research and discuss ideas that can provide a greater understanding of the clinical diagnosis, progression and treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease.
About Mount Sinai Medical Center’s Wien Center for Alzheimer’s Disease and Memory Disorders
Founded in 1986, The Wien Center for Alzheimer’s Disease and Memory Disorders was the first center in Florida to become an Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (ADRC). The Wien Center seeks an end to Alzheimer’s disease and similar disorders through research, diagnosis, education and treatment and is actively conducting more than 21 research studies and clinical trials about Alzheimer’s and other memory disorders. The Wien Center has garnered prestigious recognition by consistently being ranked a medical specialty leader in U.S.News & World Report’s list of America’s Best Hospitals. The Wien Center’s medical specialists have treated more than 5,000 memory disorder patients with a multi-faceted approach, utilizing expertise in diagnostic imaging, psychiatry, neurology genetics and geriatrics.
