On 27 July, Claire Tochel from the Real World Outcomes Across the Alzheimer’s Disease spectrum for better care: Multi-modal data Access Platform (ROADMAP) Consortium participated in a parallel session dedicated to research on women and dementia at the Alzheimer’s Disease International (ADI) Conference 2018.

The sex- and gender-based diversity in the caregiving role may lead to differences in the quality of the experience and magnitude of the risk for negative outcomes for male and female caregivers. This session discussed various aspects of this gender disparity and implications for caregiver services and research on psychosocial interventions. The symposium included contributions by caregiver and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) experts focusing on various aspects of caring for a person with AD.

Claire Tochel gave insights into the work of the Outcome Definition team. She presented a brief overview of the findings from ROADMAP on which outcomes of AD/ dementia are considered important and what this implies for female caregivers of persons living with dementia. Other speakers included Elina Suzuki who presented newly collected data on the quality of dementia care in OECD countries and Jill Lesser who gave a short presentation about the current framework of the Global Alliance for Women’s Brain Health. Furthermore, Lynn Posluns talked about the Women’s Brain Health Initiative in Canada and MaryAnne Sterling discussed the unique ways in which the AD-PCPRN is engaging dementia family caregivers in clinical research. Prof. Mittelman based her presentation on various findings including the original study of the NYU Caregiver intervention (NYUCI). Maria Teresa Ferretti then closed the session with an overview of the Women’s Brain Project’s current understanding of the topic of sex and gender in AD and the position that the Women’s Brain Project has taken with respect to this issue. You can find the ROADMAP presentation here.