RESOURCES ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE: FACTS AND HOPES

ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE:
FACTS AND HOPES
• Every 5 minutes there is a new dementia
case reported in Canada.
• Alzheimer’s Disease makes up about 75%
of dementia cases.
• Alzheimer’s condition is like being in a blank
state: lost in time and space. Alzheimer’s
patients suffer from short and long term
memory loss, loss of cognitive abilities, loss
of object recognition, loss of language
abilities, etc. Can Alzheimer’s be avoided?
• Imaging studies show that gray matter of the
brain (cell bodies) grows from birth until the
mid twenties. White matter of the brain (the
connections between the neurons) grow
from birth until age 50 and at a slower rate
until old age. These images show that
brain’s gray cell numbers and white matter
volume start to decrease at about ages 25
and 40-50 respectively. The question is how
to age with a healthy brain!
• The hope is that studies in the last 20 years
show that new brain cell formation
(neurogenesis) is possible even at old ages.
Our brain is indeed plastic! As much as it
can shrink and lose abilities, it is also able to
grow and learn.
• Our Alzheimer’s program offers educational
seminars and research studies on the
prevention,
early
onset
diagnosis,
rehabilitation and treatment of Alzheimer’s.
RESOURCES
If you are interested in learning more about any of
our programs or studies, please visit our website:
http://bme.eng.umanitoba.ca/
research/neurological/
We also offer educational seminars and memory
programs. If you are interested in receiving
announcements for these events, please contact
Dr. Zahra Moussavi by email:
[email protected]
Education is important to us and many of our
studies are conducted and facilitated by graduate
students at the University of Manitoba. To learn
more about their graduate program: Biomedical
Engineering at the University of Manitoba, please
visit our website:
http://umanitoba.ca/biomedical_engineering/
LOCATIONS
Room PE-450
Administration Building
Riverview Health Centre
1 Morley Avenue
Winnipeg, MB R3L 2P4
Room E3-518
Engineering and Information Technology Complex
University of Manitoba
75 Chancellor’s Circle
Winnipeg, MB R3T 5V6
U of Manitoba
Biomedical Engineering
Program
ALZHEIMER’S
DISEASE
RESEARCH
PREVENTION, DIAGNOSIS
AND TREATMENT PROGRAMS
THROUGH THE UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA
BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING LAB
PREVENTION
Our brain exercises have been designed to help
strengthen associative (for example, the ability
to associate a person with his/her name.)
memory that is known to be weakened by aging
and much more significantly by Alzheimer’s
disease.
TREATMENT
Our group has been the first in Canada and the
4th in the world in investigating a new treatment
technology
called
repetitive Transcranial
Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS), which is a
non-invasive and harmless technology with great
potential.
REHABILITATION
Currently we are investigating several
rehabilitation programs using immersive virtual
reality experiments; they are designed for early,
moderate and advanced stages of the disease.
Each experiment is investigated during 2 months
trial, 3 times/week.
Our designed Brain Exercises can be accessed
for free at:
http://bme.eng.umanitoba.ca/BrainExercises/
INTERESTED IN PARTICIPATING?
Users can compare their performance with the
average of their age group online.
We are always looking for new participants
(either healthy or diagnosed with dementia)
in our programs. For more information,
please contact Dr. Zahra Moussavi:
or by downloading an android or iPhone app (for $10)
from the link on the above page.
Register for our Brain Exercises and help us
discover how peoples’ cognitive abilities
may improve by brain exercises!
By phone: 204-474-7023
By e-mail: [email protected]
Dr. Moussavi with a volunteer in the rTMS treatment
facility at Riverview Health Centre
EARLY ONSET DETECTION OF ALZHEIMER’S
Over the years, Dr. Zahra Moussavi’s team including researchers, graduate and undergraduate students
have been working to develop and improve a technology to assess the spatial cognition (GPS) of the
brain using immersive computer test/games/learning exercises in virtual reality (VR) environments.
Our VR diagnostic test is an immersive (using Oculus DK2) virtual reality navigational (VRN)
assessment, in which a person navigates inside a cubic landmark-less virtual building in search of a
specific window, which they have been shown from outside of the building. The VRN is designed to
stimulate the body’s visual and movement senses. The person moves physically, while sitting in a
wheelchair; by moving the wheelchair, they move in the VR environment. (You can see a video of the
experiment in http://bme.eng.umanitoba.ca/labs/bme/research/neurological/virtual-reality/)
Graduate student, Paul, carrying out a rehabilitation session with a participant.
The VRN assessment is currently being investigated for its ability to raise a warning flag for the
Alzheimer’s onset. Those identified by the VRN assessment as potentially having Alzheimer’s are
further assessed using a physical orientation test and other assessments, and if necessary referred to
our collaborating neuro-psychiatrists.