The Queen Sofia Foundation's Vallecas Alzheimer Project (VARS) is the core research project that translates the Queen Sofia Foundation's Alzheimer Project initiative in favour of Alzheimer research. Since its inception in 2007, this project has enabled the participation of more than 560 patients in an exhaustive monitoring programme, with the collection of thousands of data and samples, without interfering with their daily life at the centre.
The VARS Project is one of the few studies currently underway in the world, aimed at obtaining multidisciplinary data (psychological, medical, functional, neuroimaging, biochemical, genetic, neuropathological) on the moderate and advanced stages of Alzheimer's disease in institutionalised patients.
The objectives of the programme are:
- To create and maintain a cohort of patients with moderate to advanced dementia in a single centre, with biannual assessments, blood sampling, MRI studies, and post mortem brain tissue donation.
- To contribute with primary data to the knowledge of the evolution of the advanced stages of dementia.
- To analyse factors associated with different pathologies, and determinants of differential evolutionary patterns (risk factors, comorbidity, rate of progression, cognitive, functional, etc.).
The Alzheimer Project research team is made up of professionals from different disciplines (psychologists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, neurologists, etc.) belonging to CIEN and the Care Centre, the two entities that make up the Vallecas Alzheimer Complex. In accordance with the centre's research protocol, patients are assessed on admission (baseline assessment) and, subsequently, twice a year (six-monthly assessments).
In those patients for whom this is indicated, an annual MRI study is performed at the centre's Neuroimaging facilities. Many patients also participate in the centre's brain tissue donation programme. In these cases, the detailed knowledge of the disease in the brain tissue obtained after the patient's death is added to the comprehensive data on the patient's evolution at the centre.
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