What is Dementia?

Scientist Explains with Dr. Mario Masellis 

Let’s talk about the D word – dementia. What is dementia?

Dementia is the umbrella term used to describe decline in mental abilities severe enough to interfere with daily life. Dementia describes a group of symptoms including loss of memory, impaired communication, judgement, and reasoning abilities among other cognitive issues. Often times these symptoms are confused with normal aging, and while it may be true that as we age our mind may not be as sharp – dementia is not a normal part of aging.

What causes dementia?

Dementia is caused by damage to brain cells. This damage affects the ability of brain cells to communicate with each other. Many diseases can cause dementia and these conditions can have similar and overlapping symptoms.

But why does dementia occur in some cases and not others?

The short answer – we’re just not sure, it’s rather complicated with multiple contributing factors from genetics to lifestyle choices. Dr. Mario Masellis, scientist and neurologist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, explains that “if you’re diagnosed with dementia over the age of 65, you’re more likely to have more than one pathology contributing to it.” The challenge is understanding the underlying mechanisms of dementia.

“Currently, the identification and development of biomarkers for dementia is in its infancy” says Dr. Masellis. Biomarkers (or biological markers) are measurable indicators that can help clinicians predict, diagnose or monitor disease. Drawing from his background in pharmacology, Dr. Masellis’ research examines the complex interplay between pharmacology, genetics, brain imaging and neurodegenerative diseases to better understand the contributors to cognitive decline.

“We need to work with the community to learn more about the pre-symptomatic stages of dementia” says Dr. Masellis, who also leads the Ontario Neurodegenerative Disease Research Initiative (ONDRI). ONDRI is a provincial research program in partnership with the Ontario Brain Institute designed to investigate the similarities and differences among dementia, particularly in the following:

• Alzheimer’s disease/mild cognitive impairment,
• Parkinson’s disease,
• Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease),
• Frontotemporal lobar degeneration, and
• Vascular cognitive impairment (resulting from stroke).

Instead of only studying what’s unique to each disease, ONDRI’s long-term observational study is seeking out the common early indicators and risk factors of the five diseases. With over 520 participants enrolled in ONDRI, researchers can study each cohort in the same way by collecting standardized data from: MRIs, cognitive testing, optical coherence tomography (eye testing), gate & balance, and genetic testing.

But this is really just the beginning! The next phase of ONDRI is to collect data from home – participants will use wearable devices for a week and researchers will compare the results against the standardized data. Dr. Masellis and the ONDRI team are also looking to expand and combine approaches with international databases in order to better understand neurodegenerative diseases.

If you’re interested in learning more on ONDRI please visit http://ondri.ca/