The COMPASS-ND study of the Canadian Consortium for Neurodegeneration in Aging (CCNA) is the largest observational study of dementia in Canada. It is aimed at understanding the disease mechanisms and diagnostic profiles of neurodegenerative illnesses. To date, 1140 Canadians who are living with, or who are at risk for developing, dementia have been tested, including those with subjective cognitive decline (SCD), mild cognitive impairment (MCI), Alzheimer’s disease (AD), vascular dementia and MCI, mixed dementia, fronto-temporal lobar dementia, and Parkinson’s disease/Lewy body dementia. Research diagnoses are based on an initial clinical screening exam. Participants then complete an independent battery of neurocognitive tests designed to provide data for the research consortium, a clinical visit with a physician, an MRI scan and bloodwork.  

The neuropsychological test battery assesses a broad range of cognitive function (e.g., episodic learning and memory, executive function, attention/concentration, language, processing speed, visual spatial abilities, reaction time, etc.). To date, of the 1080 enrolled participants, data for the first 200 have been verified and released. This webinar will report the initial results of the demographic and cognitive data from participants from the Second Data Release (DR2, March 2020). Specifically, we will present data from participants with study diagnoses of:

• SCD (n=56; 43 women, 13 men, mean age = 70.0 years; mean education = 17.0 years), 
• MCI (n=104; 46 women, 58 men, mean age = 71.4 years; mean education = 15.7 years), 
• MCI-V (n=64; 23 women, 41 men, mean age = 77.3 years; mean education = 15.3 years), 
• and AD (n=48; 16 women, 32 men, mean age = 74.6 years; mean education = 15.3 years).

We will: 1) describe the groups according to the above-noted cognitive domains, 2) disaggregate the data by sex, 3) present the frequency with which MCI participants show amnestic and/or single or multi-domain impairments, and 4) will report whether the MCI and V-MCI participants differ in their neuropsychological profiles. Time permitting, we will also examine the relationships between certain neuroanatomical measures (e.g., hippocampal volume) and memory performance.
Our goal will be to 1) familiarize webinar participants with the cognitive measures available, 2) the key cognitive findings from the Second Data Release, and 3) to encourage CCNA members to avail themselves of these data.