Prevention of Dementia: Kristine Yaffe

GeriPal - A Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine Podcast · May 11, 2023 · 46m

We've had multiple GeriPal episodes about treatments for dementia, including aducanumab (here, here, and here) and lecanemab (here). As today's guest, Kristine Yaffe notes, part of the reason for that emphasis is that in the US we prioritize treatment, whereas other countries are ahead of us in prioritizing prevention. Deb Barnes and Kristine Yaffe published a landmark paper in Lancet Neurology finding that up to half of dementia risk is due to modifiable factors. If we focused on prevention, from a public health standpoint, we would achieve far more than spending millions billions on…