ParkDem

Up to 80% of patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) will develop dementia, which significantly affects quality of life, increases caregiver burden, and raises healthcare costs. PD is a chronic disease characterized by a gradual reduction of dopamine-producing nerve cells, leading to a worsening of symptoms over time, and the timing of dementia development can vary significantly. Today, we lack good diagnostic tools to identify the risk of dementia, which creates great uncertainty for both patients and their relatives regarding the disease's progression, while also making it challenging to test preventive measures.

Project Goals

ParkDem aims to address this knowledge gap by developing a biomarker panel that can help identify individuals with PD who are at increased risk of developing dementia. This is crucial for improving and tailoring patient treatment, and for specifically including individuals with actual risk in clinical studies testing preventive measures.

A Global Effort

To achieve this, we have established a collaboration among international research groups that have followed individuals with PD from the time of diagnosis to the onset of dementia. Extensive clinical datasets and large collections of biological samples have been compiled, providing a unique foundation for new biomarker research. The collaboration has already yielded important new knowledge about genetic associations and protein-based biomarkers associated with PD and dementia development.

The main goal is to develop a panel of clinically relevant biomarkers to identify increased risk for dementia in PD. This will be a breakthrough in the field and will enable early disease intervention and a better-tailored approach for each patient based on their future needs. At the same time, it will be important for more targeted inclusion of at-risk patients in future clinical studies.

Key Funding Sources

The ParkDem project is supported by the Research Council of Norway, with additional support from the Norwegian Parkinson's Research Foundation.