Last Updated on June 12, 2024 by BVN
Overview: California is home to more seniors than any other state, with an estimated 720,000 Californians aged 65 and older that have Alzheimer’s disease. The California Department of Public Health has launched a statewide campaign called “Take on Alzheimer’s” to address the growing number of older Californians who are experiencing Alzheimer’s disease. Dr. Doris Molina-Henry, an assistant professor at the USC Keck School of Medicine Alzheimer’s Therapeutic Research Institute, discussed the importance of brain health and Alzheimer’s research, emphasizing the need for diverse populations to participate in clinical trials to help prevent the symptoms of Alzheimer’s before they begin.
Breanna Reeves
With June marking Alzheimer’s and Brain Awareness Month, organizations such as the Alzheimer’s Association seek to increase awareness around the disease and encourage the public to stay informed about their brain health. Recently, the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) launched a statewide campaign called “Take on Alzheimer’s” to address the growing number of older Californians who are experiencing Alzheimer’s disease.
“Statewide public awareness health campaigns like Take on Alzheimer’s can support affected communities by raising awareness, reducing stigma, and promoting early detection and diagnosis,” said Dr. Kacie Deters, an assistant professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), via email. Dr. Deters’s research focuses on investigating how different risk factors, such as genetics or social determinants, contribute to cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s disease in Black communities.
Alzheimer’s disease is the most common type of dementia, which gets worse over time, resulting in memory loss that disrupts daily life, confusion, forgetfulness and agitation. California is home to more seniors than any other state, with an estimated 720,000 Californians aged 65 and older that have Alzheimer’s disease, as of July 2023.
“Statewide public awareness health campaigns like Take on Alzheimer’s can support affected communities by raising awareness, reducing stigma, and promoting early detection and diagnosis,” Dr. Deters stated. “By focusing on communities with higher rates of Alzheimer’s, these initiatives help address healthcare disparities and ensure that vulnerable populations receive the necessary support and resources.”
As the CDPH and Alzheimer’s Association continue to spread awareness about the disease and increase public education on how to recognize the signs, Black Voice News spoke with Dr. Doris Molina-Henry, an assistant professor at the USC Keck School of Medicine Alzheimer’s Therapeutic Research Institute, to discuss the importance of brain health and Alzheimer’s research. Her work currently focuses on examining strategies that promote the participation of cognitively unimpaired, at-risk, diverse adults into studies that aim to help prevent the symptoms of Alzheimer’s before they begin.
This interview has been edited for clarity and conciseness.
BVN: Can you begin by sharing about the work you do regarding Alzheimer’s disease?
Dr. Molina-Henry: I work within the Alzheimer’s Therapeutic Research Institute, which is a part of the Keck School of Medicine at USC. We are mainly an institute dedicated to evaluating and identifying future treatments for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementia. The work that I do, on a day-to-day basis, really entails the recruitment, engagement and retention of populations into the studies that we oversee and manage and we collaborate with others on. Those studies are typically clinical trials, pharmaceutical clinical trials, that we do.
We are scoped for a number of different types of interventions, but generally, they tend to be pharmaceutical trials. This is the area that I focus in, and that may entail monitoring our recruitment and retention of participants in those studies. How do we best engage them? How do we communicate to the public what trials are and their value in the context of the development of new treatments?
BVN: Can you explain what happens to the brain as we age?
Dr. Molina-Henry: I think one of the things that I typically like to bring up in the context of what happens to the brain as we age is what has been a myth versus what is reality. I think, generally, people believe that as we age, we are going to become very forgetful, we are going to be cognitively impaired, we are going to be unable to be independent. It’s kind of a story that has been painted for many years. It was always thought that that was a normal stage of aging.
We now know that is incorrect; that those things that I’ve just described are really symbolic of a brain that is diseased, and the fact that the highest risk for that disease is age. However, that doesn’t mean that we can’t age with very healthy brains, and [with] brains that allow us to remember, brains that allow us to be efficient and effective, and still socialize and engage in our communities and environments, and also remain independent for a long part of our life.
BVN: What things can people do to support a healthy brain?
Dr. Molina-Henry: I think one of the things that we push for is ensuring that just as much as we emphasize building wealth in other aspects of our lives, is that we build cognitive wealth. Cognitive wealth entails certain behaviors that might allow us to preserve what we have as cognition, and to stimulate it, to grow it to enable that brain to remain…flexible and able to continue to grow and develop and be challenged in positive ways. So, those are things that we can continue to do.
Typically, I think most of the recommendations are around what we eat, what we do in terms of activity. So active lifestyle, healthy eating [of] foods that are going to contribute to keeping our brain healthy and nourished. And then sleep, great sleep, and not just the amount of sleep, but also the quality. We should still be getting eight hours of sleep a night. As we get older, engaging socially, maintaining our social connections, participating in social activities, those are all going to continue to go through constant brain challenges. So a sense of well being ultimately is what keeps our brain really strong and healthy.
There are other recommendations along those lines that are typically around your behavior [and] challenging your brain cognitively, so maybe learning a new language. I think these are things that are harder to think of, but just doing certain things that are atypical from your day to day [and] being in a type of environment where you can learn and that may be a number of different things. You may take up woodworking. You may take up a certain hobby that challenges you. So those are some of the things that help us not solely keep a healthy brain, but really minimize our risk of losing our brain health.
BVN: What should someone do if they’re concerned about memory loss?
Dr. Molina-Henry: Now, more than ever, we have opportunities — and I’m very fortunate to be a part of the field of Alzheimer’s in such an exciting time. We are in a time where we have now found the first disease modifying therapy and Alzheimer’s disease is one of the more prevalent dementias. And dementia being the diseases that entail things like memory loss, things like ultimately with progression, loss of function, loss of independence. So some of the things that we should do is remain proactive, know our risk, our family history, connect with our provider and make sure that we are relaying those concerns, [and] participating in research.
This is often one of those things that is not talked about, but research affords us opportunities to know what is going on in the field of Alzheimer’s and also what resources might be available for us to know and for us to be proactive, and for us to know whether there are challenges that we need to be much more engaged with. I highly recommend individuals consider making sure not to dismiss concerns. Even our subjective concerns may, in turn, be reasons for being seen. The fact that we now have an intervention for someone who is mildly cognitively impaired should encourage more and more people to be in the know of what the state of their cognition is.
BVN: In your work promoting education on clinical trials, can you talk about why it may be important for people of color to participate in such trials like Alzheimer’s?
Dr. Molina-Henry: This is hugely important, and I think it’s a very important part personally, for me. I think it’s unfortunate to see the lack of representation, if you would, in our studies and research as a whole. Particularly in studies that could be life changing or course changing for fields, and particularly for this field. Now more than ever, it’s become an aspect of commitment for our researchers for the research field to ensure that the populations that are going to be highly affected by diseases like Alzheimer’s disease, have opportunities to participate in clinical studies and clinical trials.
What we’ve realized is that sometimes it’s because the disease presents in some individuals. So in cases where we’ve had individuals just come to participate in a study, they may be legible in some cases, and may be ineligible in other cases. But all of that and that willingness to participate, affords us data that allows us to understand how the disease itself impacts different populations in different ways. So participation is crucial. We cannot do it without the participant. Participants from our underrepresented communities, particularly communities like the Black community, are so, so important because we don’t know enough. We know it’s a population that has among the highest risks for developing dementia in the future.
BVN: What are the benefits of joining clinical trials and how can someone figure out how to join such trials?
Dr. Molina-Henry: What I typically point out in terms of benefits are some of the things that I mentioned, including being in a network where you understand and learn about the research that is happening. I think it allows for those individuals who are truly concerned, who have a family history, who are committed, to see changes for their families in their future. Participation becomes a way that they give back to their children, to their communities, to ensure that the treatments developed will [not only] work for the community as a whole, but even folks within their close network.
Also, participating in a study affords individuals an opportunity to be amongst clinicians and providers that are among the top of their field. They’re doing very cutting edge work and they are at the forefront of identifying ways of us really defeating or finding ways of us reducing the risk of dementia or the progression of dementia in the future. We are excited to be part of studies that are now even looking at years prior to developing symptoms of the disease, so that perhaps one day, we might prevent symptoms of the disease.
If you are affiliated, or are seen at a clinic, one great way is to ask your provider if there are any studies related to that. Another place that we often recommend for people is to go to clinicaltrials.gov. There you will find studies that are sponsored or federally funded and are supported by vetted agencies in this space. You can also go to a registry. Some of these are parts of different institutions. We, for instance, at the Alzheimer’s Therapeutic Research Institute, have a registry that allows the longitudinal follow up, meaning that people, over time, take cognitive assessments, and we are able to monitor their cognition. That is a give back to the participant, because they can see how they’re faring with time. But also, it becomes a way, that if something changes or if there’s concern based on data related over time, we can let the participant know about opportunities to participate in a clinical trial.
BVN: Anything else you’d like to add?
Dr. Molina-Henry: I think it’s a very important time for individuals to get involved. We want answers and we want answers for our communities, and this is a great way for us to get there.