NCMD Seminar Presents 'Biomarkers to predict risk of dementia in very late onset psychosis” and  “EEG to predict future conversion to dementia in Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI)'

During this week’s NCMD seminar Dr Leigh Townsend and Dr Jahfer Hasoon presented their current research projects both of which focus on dementia.

Dr Leigh Townsend, an ST4 in Old Age Psychiatry and soon to be doctoral fellow at Newcastle University, delivered a detailed presentation on his PhD project commencing in February. Throughout the presentation, 'Biomarkers to predict risk of dementia in very late onset psychosis', Dr Townsend explained how he aims to assess and understand the risk of dementia in people with very late onset psychosis (VLOP). He went on to further explain how this project hopes to explore how biomarkers and measures of inflammation can help us understand the risk and progression of dementia in this group.

This project hopes to update data on risk and incidence of dementia in VLOP participants and act as a pilot study in a difficult to reach cohort. Dr Townsend concluded that he hopes that this data can be used to support the call for future research for a larger cohort with long term follow ups to investigate the diagnostic utility of blood and MRI biomarkers in VLOP patients.

The second half of the seminar was led by Dr Jahfer Hasoon a CT3 psychiatry trainee and PhD student currently working on predicting progression and treatment response in dementia with Lewy bodies. Dr Hasoon delivered the presentation “EEG to predict future conversion to dementia in Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI)”, throughout this he explored how electroencephalograms (EEGs) can be used to predict who will convert to dementia from MCI due to Lewy bodies and MCI due to Alzheimer’s disease. He went onto explain how EEGs are useful tests for Dementia with Lewy Bodies (DLB) and how they can help with prognosis.

Dr Hasoon concluded that more evidence in this field is needed and calls for future research to use larger samples, neuroimaging data and biomarker subtyping.

Thank you very much to Dr Townsend and Dr Hasoon for presenting at this week’s NCMD seminar.