1 CE

This talk will discuss implementation of an individualized cognitive remediation program in a cancer and sickle cell population to help prepare for transition of care, including procedures for telehealth adaptation and research outcomes of the program.

Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) is a form of degenerative dementia that commonly affects younger people. It typically presents as radical alterations in a person’s behaviour, reasoning, and judgement. Yet, there is wide variation both in clinical characteristics (demographics, behavioural, cognitive, and neurological) and in the underlying neurobiology (pathology and genetics). Importantly, in recent decades, the relationship has been highlighted between the behavioural disorder of FTD (bvFTD) and progressive disorders of language and conceptual knowledge that come under the rubric of primary progressive aphasia. This webinar is designed to provide an overview of the current state of knowledge about FTD, with a focus on sources of heterogeneity. In the talk I explore differences in demographic features, such as onset age and length of survival. I describe variations in the pattern of behavioural change and the nature of language and semantic disorder, with specific clinical examples. I consider performance on executive tests and its qualitative characteristics. I summarise different associated neurological signs, the distinct pathological types and the most common genetic mutations. I consider the predictive inter-relationships between clinical characteristics and underlying neurobiology and discuss their relevance for clinical diagnosis and management.

Serial neuropsychological assessments are complicated to interpret due to practice effects, regression to the mean, and “normal” change in clinical conditions. Nonetheless, they occur frequently in clinical practice and research. This webinar will compare and contrast the two most widely-used change score methods: Reliable Change Index + Practice Effects (RCI+PE) and Standardized Regression-Based (SRB) change scores. Using actual data in patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment, RCI+PE and SRB will be calculated and compared among subgroups of this sample. Factors that influence RCI+PE and SRB methods will be highlighted, as will methods for using these change scores in clinical practice and research. Although this webinar will be math-heavy, it should allow individuals to immediately start using these change methods in their clinical practice and research.

This session will discuss clinical practice guidelines in stroke and TBI. Prof Jennie Ponsford will provide an overview of the methods used to develop and update the INCOG Guidelines 2.0. Highlights of the revised recommendations for conducting rehabilitation in individuals with traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic amnesia, impairments of attention, executive function, cognitive communication functions and memory will be presented, including discussion of the approaches taken, with an emphasis on assessment, goal setting, application and evaluation of outcomes of interventions in real world contexts. The use of algorithms will also be illustrated. Using the recent joint European Stroke Organisation and European Academy of Neurology guidance on post stroke cognitive impairment as an exemplar, Dr Terry Quinn will discuss the development of those guidelines and their application. Throughout the session areas where there is a need for further research will also be highlighted.

During the past several decades we’ve witness tremendous advances in our ability to study human brain function. Now, for example, we can probe processing differences at the level of the cortical laminar, and identify the brain’s intrinsic network architecture via recording slowly fluctuating, spontaneous neural activity at rest. Yet, despite these and other advances, we have little to show for it on the treatment front. In this webinar, I will highlight recent advances in functional neuroimaging that may potentially offer a means for modifying aberrant neurocircuitry in neuropsychiatric patients. This method, closed-loop neuromodulation, uses implicit feedback to manipulate spontaneous activity at the network level, without violating the spontaneous or endogenous nature of the signal inherent in other techniques like TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation). As a result, it may also provide a means for directly testing network causality.

During this intermediate level session Dr. Gross will review the process of data harmonization involving cognitive tests, the role of neuropsychological expertise to inform statistical methods, and cultural issues in cognitive testing pertinent for aging research
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The cognitively unimpaired stage of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is quite long in duration, but the interval varies widely from person to person. This talk will describe some of the brain and cognitive changes that we have observed from over a decade of biomarker imaging within the Wisconsin Registry for Alzheimer’s Prevention (WRAP) and related studies. The talk will give an overview of the WRAP study including its approach to measuring cognition, and describe the approaches to biomarker imaging we and others use to characterize AD proteinopathy. I’ll describe how we have derived temporal information from biomarker imaging such that age of onset of AD proteinopathy and disease duration can be estimated. I’ll also describe some of the factors that influence age of onset and duration of the pre-symptomatic stage of AD duration of the pre-symptomatic stage of AD.

Financial exploitation of older adults is a significant public health concern. However, the reasons why certain older adults are susceptible to scam and fraud are poorly understood. This presentation will review neuropsychological, neuroimaging, and other scientific evidence focused on elucidating the underlying factors and neurobiological mechanisms associated with risk of financial exploitation in older age. Implications for clinical practice and public policy will also be discussed.
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Frontotemporal dementia is a relatively rare dementia syndrome characterised by insidious and progressive changes in behaviour and personality. Currently, no disease-modifying treatment or cure exists, and differential diagnosis is challenging. In this webinar we will provide an overview of current clinical recommendations for the diagnosis of behavioural-variant frontotemporal dementia, with a focus on differentiation from Alzheimer’s disease and from primary psychiatric disorders. We will also outline assessment approaches for the diagnosis of primary progressive aphasias. We will discuss recent studies examining cross-linguistic studies in primary progressive aphasia and how bilingualism can influence the clinical phenotype. How to approach diagnosis in a low resource setting will be considered. Finally, we will provide an overview of available management and treatment options.