Alzheimer's Definitions, Biomarkers, and Antibodies: Halima Amjad, Barak Gaster, and Heather Whitson

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GeriPal - A Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine Podcast 52 min 3 speakers 3 chapters transcribed 10 hours ago
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

Eric Widera 0:00
This podcast is not CME eligible. If people do want to learn more about CME eligible podcast, Alex, what do they do?
Alex Smith 0:07
They can go to cherrypal.org backslash CME.
Eric Widera 0:12
And on to the show. Welcome to the Cherry Pal podcast. This is Eric Widera. This is Alex Smith. And Alex, I love this episode. We're going to be talking about all things Alzheimer's, amyloid, and antibodies today. Who are our guests who are going to be talking to us? We
Alex Smith 0:30
have all returning guests today. This is terrific. We're delighted to welcome back Heather Whitson, who's a geriatrician and researcher at Duke, and she is co-director of the Duke UNC Alzheimer's Disease Research Center. Heather, welcome back to the GeriPal podcast.
Heather Whitson 0:47
Thank you. I'm glad I made it back.
Alex Smith 0:49
And we're delighted to welcome Halima Amjad, who is a geriatrician, researcher, and dementia specialist at Johns Hopkins. Halima, welcome back to the GeriPal podcast.
Halima Amjad 1:00
Excited to chat today.
Alex Smith 1:01
And Barack Astor, who joined us pre-COVID when we were an audio-only podcast back in the day. Barack is a primary care clinician and dementia expert at the University of Washington and director of the Cognition and Primary Care Program. Barack, welcome back to the Jerry Pell Podcast. Happy to be here.
Eric Widera 1:23
Can I just say how awesome it is? We have three dementia experts, two of them geriatricians, one of them primary care. I just want to highlight how cool that is. But before we get into this topic, Heather, I think you have a song request for Alex.
Heather Whitson 1:40
Yes, I'm going to request my favorite song, Harmony Hall, normally sung by Vampire Weekend, but today sung by Alex.
Alex Smith 1:48
And why this song?
Heather Whitson 1:50
So I figured we would probably be talking about blood-based biomarkers. So Vampire was part of the inspiration. But also, it's my favorite song right now.
Alex Smith 2:01
It is great. I had not heard this song, but I had so much fun. I went to town. So those of you who are listening to the audio-only version of this, you're going to get my version with many instruments. It was a lot of fun. So thank you so much for this request, Heather. Here's a little bit.
Unknown 2:26
We took a vow in summertime Now we find ourselves in late December I believe that New Year's Eve Will be the perfect time for the great surrender But they don't remember Anger wants a voice Voices wanna sing Singers harmonize till they can't hear anything I thought that I was free from all that questioning But every time a problem ends, another one begins And the stone walls of Harmony Halls bear witness Anybody with a worried mind could never forgive the sight Wicked snakes inside a place you thought was dignified I don't wanna live like this, but I don't wanna die
Unknown 3:45
I don't want to live like this, but I don't want to die.
Eric Widera 3:53
Lovely. Thank you, Alex.
Barak Gaster 3:56
That was great.
Heather Whitson 3:57
How do you do, Heather?
Barak Gaster 3:57
That's a jam.
Heather Whitson 3:58
Love that one. Thank you. Love it. You did it. You did it proud. Thank you, Alex.
Eric Widera 4:02
All right, I'm going to start at the top, top. And again, we're going to have links to past episodes that we've done on amyloid antibodies, thinking about how to diagnose somebody in primary care with Alzheimer's disease. But you don't have to listen to that. We're going to actually start from the very top. I'm just thinking, Barack, you do a lot of teaching of primary care providers, right? On how to diagnose dementia, how to think about Alzheimer's disease. There's a lot of competing definitions out there right now. What is Alzheimer's disease? From the more traditional, like it requires both clinical and a pathological diagnosis versus just it's all biomarkers. How do you talk about Alzheimer's disease to the primary care providers that you see?
Barak Gaster 4:53
Yeah. And, you know, we're still in such an area of flux where everybody's still trying to figure out what do all these words mean. And, you know, and I really sort of in terms of what we sort of the training we do for primary care doctors and as part of the cognition primary care program, really focusing sort of absolutely at the center first is identifying somebody who has cognitive impairment. you know, like that is the sort of most important giant first step, you know, making a diagnosis of either mild cognitive impairment or dementia in the primary care space.

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