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4. VALLECAS PROJECT
4.1. Introduction
Dementia is a clinical syndrome characterized by a one of the challenges currently faced by research is
progressive cognitive impairment severe enough to the development of useful tools that allow early
affect personal and social functioning of an indivi- diagnosis of AD.
dual.
Currently, there is no reliable method to safely pre-
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the leading cause of de- dict which individuals in these preclinical stages
mentia in our environment. According to the Natio- have an increased risk of converting to dementia.
nal Epidemiology Center, 7.3% of the population The emergence in the last decade of various diag-
over 65 years could suffer from this disease nowa- nostic neuroimaging techniques (eg, brain PET amy-
days. In total, AD constitutes about 75% of the etio- loid) has led to considerable progress in research,
logy of dementias, either alone or in combination although its use in regular clinical practice is not fe-
with cerebrovascular disease. As a result of increa- asible due to its high cost.
sed life expectancy and the progressive aging of the
population in Western countries, dementia repre- The main objective of the population-based study
sents a huge challenge for public health systems. In "Vallecas Project" for Early Detection of Alzheimer's
our country, it is estimated that by 2050 a third of the Disease, is to elucidate, through tracking of progres-
population will be over 65 years, so that approxima- sion, the best combination of clinical parameters
tely one million Spaniards could have dementia by and complementary tests (imaging and laboratory)
then. that allow deciphering at medium- and long-term
features that distinguish those who will develop me-
According to the Survey of Disability, Personal Auto- mory impairment (MCI and dementia) from those
nomy and Dependency Situations developed by who will not. Thus, it intends to identify various mar-
the National Institute of Statistics, the rate of disabi- kers to eventually determine the potential risk that
lity stands at ninety dementia cases per thousand in- each individual could have to develop the disease
habitants. However, the impact of dementia is not in the future.
only produced directly on the patient, but also has a
great impact on his/her family and social environ- 4.2. Background: Pilot project
ment with regards to affective, organizational and
economic aspects. In this sense, dementia should be A pilot study was conducted between June 2010
understood as a social problem that must be ap- and February 2011, prior to the final project, whose
proached in a comprehensive manner. first preliminary results are presented in this report.
The aims of this study were:
The transition from a cognitively healthy stage to an • To verify the feasibility of the working
AD-type dementia is a continuum in which some in- procedure, the cooperation of the target
termediate stages, preclinical and prodromal can population and the adequacy of screening
be recognized. These stages are characterized by protocols to the study objectives.
the presence of an incipient cognitive impairment
which increases the probability of conversion to de- • To obtain early and sufficient information on
mentia in the future. An effective therapeutic inter- the characteristics of the recruited volunteers
vention in these phases prior to AD could eventually and those that could not be recruited, as well
slow the progression of deterioration and thus re- as the limitations of the actual
duce the prevalence of the disease. For this reason, samplingcompared to the intended one.
CIEN Foundation Annual Report 2015 / 71
