Studying vascular predictors for the onset of stroke and dementia in older adults

Project Summary

In Canada, about one-third of seniors have at least 2 of the 10 most common chronic diseases. The prevalence of multimorbidity increases from 70% to 80% among seniors living with dementia. Specifically, people living with dementia are more likely to experience cardiovascular diseases. Dementia and cardiovascular disease share several common risk factors. In addition to the many lifestyle-related modifiable risk factors, several blood biomarkers might be predictive of stroke, post-stroke complications, cognitive decline, and dementia. Studying these blood biomarkers and their link with the onset of cardiovascular diseases and cognitive decline could improve our understanding of how dementia develops and support earlier identification of both cardiovascular disease and dementia risk. In this project, we will look at the parallel trajectories of changes in blood biomarker concentrations, cardiovascular events, incident stroke, and dementia over a person’s life course.