U.S. Research Launches Initiative to Help Treat Dementia

The Synexus HealthyMinds Registry, a large research initiative in the United States, has launched and is seeking 30,000 U.S. participants for a five-year study examining the lifestyle and genetic risk factors impacting cognitive function over time. Supporting researchers’ goal of identifying ways to prevent and treat Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia, the registry is open for U.S. adults age 50 or older who do not have dementia.

Synexus HMR is a collaboration between Accelerated Enrollment Solutions (AES) - a business unit of Pharmaceutical Product Development, LLC (PPD), the global contract research organization - and the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom.

“For those who want to empower themselves with the latest information in brain health and dementia prevention strategies and research, our new registry offers novel and valuable ways to get involved – to do good and do well,” said Alireza Atri, MD, PhD, principal investigator on the study, director of the Banner Sun Health Research Institute (BSHRI) in Sun City, Arizona, and a longtime faculty member in neurology at Harvard Medical School. “Synexus HMR provides opportunities to learn and engage in activities that can help protect our aging brains, as well as contribute to critical studies to determine what combination of age, lifestyle and genetic factors can lead to better preservation of mental faculties and vital aging.”

The Synexus HMR study is being conducted exclusively online at www.SynexusHMR.com and features annual cognitive assessments, lifestyle and medical questionnaires, and free brain training games. Registry participants also will be among the first to learn about clinical research studies of promising new treatments for Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia, and they maybe afforded opportunities to join clinical trials. For those trials, research-focused enrollment will be managed by AES and centered on communities surrounding its clinical research sites and major Alzheimer’s research facilities.

“People with mild cognitive impairment often are not in contact with specialty or even with primary care physicians, so only broader registries can provide access to a large enough population to do research,” said Dawie Wessels, M.D., MBA, chief medical officer of AES. “There are existing registries with lots of people in them, but with very little data. By engaging participants in a longitudinal way, Synexus HMR will be able to provide a substantial amount of valuable data to the research community studying prevention and treatment of dementia.”