Abstract
Dementia prevention in Africa is critically underexplored, despite the continent’s high prevalence of modifiable risk factors. With a predominantly young and middle-aged population, Africa presents a prime opportunity to implement evidence-based strategies that could significantly reduce future dementia cases and mitigate its economic impact. The multinational Africa-FINGERS program offers an innovative solution, pioneering culturally sensitive, multidomain interventions tailored to the unique challenges of the region. Leveraging insights from landmark global studies such as Worldwide-FINGERS and Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative, the program employs a multideterminant precision prevention framework, grounded in community based systems dynamics. Africa-FINGERS further integrates cutting-edge state-of-the-art multimodal biomarker evaluations tailored to regional contexts, with the goal of advancing brain health and establishing a global standard for dementia prevention. This groundbreaking initiative highlights the potential for scalableand sustainable interventions, thus is poised to transform dementia risk reduction efforts across the continent.
Highlights
Dementia rates are escalating in Africa, largely due to longer life spans and increased prevalence of modifiable risk factors. Yet, few regional interventions have directly targeted lifestyle factors to reduce dementia risk.
The multinational Africa-FINGERS study will address this gap by adapting the successful FINGERS lifestyle intervention to African populations.
Africa-FINGERS will pioneer a culturally informed, multidomain dementia risk reduction intervention in the African region through feasibility dementia prevention trials in rural and urban sites across Kenya and Nigeria in the first instance, enrolling 600 at-risk adults (≥ 50 years). The program adopts participatory research methods to develop culturally appropriate interventions and build infrastructure to evaluate dementia biomarkers from ante and post mortem samples. A cost-effectiveness analysis will be conducted to guide the strategic implementation of Africa-FINGERS into regional health systems.
The Africa-FINGERS strategy aligns with the Worldwide-FINGERS framework and integrates the global Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative approach, emphasizing multimodal analysis.
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This post is Copyright: Chinedu T. Udeh‐Momoh,
Rachel Maina,
Udunna C. Anazodo,
Rufus Akinyemi,
Lukoye Atwoli,
Laura Baker,
Darina Bassil,
Karen Blackmon,
Edna Bosire,
Gloria Chemutai,
Lucia Crivelli,
Laz U. Eze,
Agustin Ibanez,
Dimitra Kafetsouli,
Thomas K. Karikari,
Linda Khakali,
Manasi Kumar,
Imre Lengyel,
Celeste A. de Jager Loots,
Francesca Mangialasche,
Sylvia Mbugua,
Zul Merali,
Michelle Mielke,
Cyprian Mostert,
Eunice Muthoni,
Olivera Nesic‐Taylor,
Anthony Ngugi,
Samuel Nguku,
Adesola Ogunniyi,
Adedoyin Ogunyemi,
Ozioma C. Okonkwo,
Njideka Okubadejo,
Robert Perneczky,
Tunde Peto,
Roselyter M. Riang’a,
Mansoor Saleh,
Shaheen Sayed,
Jasmit Shah,
Sheena Shah,
Alina Solomon,
Thomas Thesen,
Dominic Trepel,
Valentine Ucheagwu,
Victor Valcour,
Sheila Waa,
Tamlyn Watermeyer,
Jennifer Yokoyama,
Henrik Zetterberg,
Miia Kivipelto,
Africa‐FINGERS Study Team | November 8, 2024