World‐Wide FINGERS Network: A global approach to risk reduction and prevention of dementia

Abstract

Reducing the risk of dementia can halt the worldwide increase of affected people. The multifactorial and heterogeneous nature of late-onset dementia, including Alzheimer's disease (AD), indicates a potential impact of multidomain lifestyle interventions on risk reduction. The positive results of the landmark multidomain Finnish Geriatric Intervention Study to Prevent Cognitive Impairment and Disability (FINGER) support such an approach. The World-Wide FINGERS (WW-FINGERS), launched in 2017 and including over 25 countries, is the first global network of multidomain lifestyle intervention trials for dementia risk reduction and prevention. WW-FINGERS aims to adapt, test, and optimize the FINGER model to reduce risk across the spectrum of cognitive decline-from at-risk asymptomatic states to early symptomatic stages-in different geographical, cultural, and economic settings. WW-FINGERS aims to harmonize and adapt multidomain interventions across various countries and settings, to facilitate data sharing and analysis across studies, and to promote international joint initiatives to identify globally implementable and effective preventive strategies.

Expanding Representation of Low and Middle Income Countries in Global Dementia Research: Commentary From the Alzheimer's Association

“…A similarly large collaboration aimed at preventing dementia is the World Wide FINGERS network (17,18), which was launched in 2017 and has brought together more than 30 participating countries in a global network of multimodal lifestyle intervention trials aimed at dementia risk reduction and prevention. These trials are modeled after the Finnish Geriatric Intervention Study to Prevent Cognitive Impairment and Disability (FINGER) trial, the first randomized controlled trial (RCT) to show that it is possible to prevent cognitive decline among older at-risk individuals using a multidomain lifestyle intervention (19).…”

“…These trials are modeled after the Finnish Geriatric Intervention Study to Prevent Cognitive Impairment and Disability (FINGER) trial, the first randomized controlled trial (RCT) to show that it is possible to prevent cognitive decline among older at-risk individuals using a multidomain lifestyle intervention (19). With support from the Alzheimer's Association, a Latin American first-of-its-kind study, LatAm-FINGERS, is in the final planning stages and will involve 1,300 subjects from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, and Uruguay (17,18). The study participants, individuals who are thought to be at a higher risk of cognitive decline due to a range of factors such as sedentary lifestyle, poor diet, and/or a suboptimal metabolic-cardiovascular profile, will be randomly assigned to one of two interventions.…”

Serum Uric Acid and the Risk of Dementia: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

“…Dementia is a group of acquired clinical syndromes characterized by the progressive decline in cognition along with psychiatric and behavioral alterations of differing extents (Tari et al, 2019;Zhou et al, 2020). More than 50 million people worldwide suffer from the overload burden of finance due to this clinical entity, a number that is alarmingly expected to triple by 2050 (Kivipelto et al, 2020). The seriousness and urgency of the present situation are that no licensed drugs are available to cure any type of dementia, such as Alzheimer's disease (AD), Parkinson's disease with dementia (PDD), and vascular dementia (VaD) (Jennings et al, 2020).…”

Olfactory Impairment Among Rural-Dwelling Chinese Older Adults: Prevalence and Associations With Demographic, Lifestyle, and Clinical Factors

“…The study sample was from baseline participants in the Multidomain Interventions to Delay Dementia and Disability in Rural China (MIND-China) study, a participating project in the World-Wide FINGERS Network (Kivipelto et al, 2020). Briefly, MIND-China targeted people who were aged 60 years and older and living in the 52 villages of Yanlou Town, Yanggu County, western Shandong province, China.…”