The Women's Healthy Ageing Project: Fertile ground for investigation of healthy participants ‘at risk’ for dementia

Abstract

Alzheimer's disease neuropathology (amyloid, tauopathies) and brain atrophy are present decades prior to manifestation of clinical symptoms. With the failure of treatment trials it is becoming clearer that the window for prevention and therapeutic intervention is before significant neuronal loss and clinical deterioration of cognition has occurred. Early identification of those at risk of disease and optimizing their management to prevent disease in later life are crucial to delaying disease onset and improving people's quality of life. The Women's Healthy Aging Project (WHAP) is a longitudinal study of over 400 Australian-born women, epidemiologically randomly sampled in 1990. The WHAP aims to identify modifiable mid-life risk factors for the development of late-life cognitive decline, improve the understanding of the pathogenesis of dementia, and target early disease identification utilizing clinical, biomarker and health risk profiles. These aims are fortified by the ability to leverage the considerable database on health, lifestyle and socio-demographics collected prospectively from 1990 to date. This is the first study with a comprehensive neuropsychological battery, over a decade of cognitive follow-up, with all participants being offered amyloid imaging from 2012, and prospective longitudinal data including clinical and physical measures and bio-bank samples from over 20 years prior.

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the contribution of the participants, team, partners and their supporters who have given their time and patience for over 20 years to the university. A full list of all researchers contributing to the project and the membership of our Scientific Advisory Board is available at www.whap.nari.unimelb.edu.au.

Declaration of interest: Funding for the WHAP has been provided by the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC 1062133, 547600, 1032350), Bayer Healthcare, Piramal Life-Sciences, India, the Ramaciotti Foundation, the Brain Foundation, the Alzheimer's Association of Australia, the Australian Menopausal Society, the Shepherd Foundation, the Scobie and Claire McKinnon Foundation, the Collier Trust Fund, the J.O. & J.R. Wicking Trust, the Mason Foundation and the Alzheimer's Association. Inaugural funding was provided by VicHealth and the NHMRC, the Principal Investigator of WHAP (C.Sz.) is supported by the NHMRC and the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences at the University of Melbourne. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.