The National Institute of Health said it would establish a base for conducting cohort studies to support the development of diagnostics and treatment for dementia.

The NIH under the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) plans to gather data from dementia patients or people at high risk of having the disorder as part of the brain disease project. The institute will use the collected information to provide better cohort data of dementia for researchers.

The project aims to secure precision medicine resources from various institutions, including dementia brain banks, to provide a base for developing accurate diagnostics, prevention, and management guidelines for brain diseases.

NIH has expanded the target patient groups and participating medical institutions conducting nationwide clinical trials of dementia and formed larger cohorts of elderly patients with dementia in the nation.

The cohort with senile dementia plans to recruit 850 patients above 65 having dementia caused by Alzheimer’s disease, vascular reasons, or Lewy bodies. It also will follow up for three years to develop a model for identifying the course of the disorder and prognostic factors.

The institute will also recruit about 400 dementia patients under 65 with early-onset for three years to find the cause of the disorder and predict the diagnosis and prognosis through follow-ups every year. In addition, the group is trying to find the genes that cause early-onset dementia.

The state agency wants to identify which genes correlate with the early-onset of dementia by analyzing the genetic characteristics of their family line.

The institute noted that the burden of individual and national diseases increases with the rising number of dementia patients due to the aging society, stressing that the nation needs a cohort to improve technologies for diagnosis, prevention, treatment, and medical guidelines since the causes of dementia vary.

NIH officials expected the national dementia research to provide quality data to researchers and help related studies to thrive.

“We plan to strengthen the research on senile disorders and aging and expand and develop the project as a national research center in the future,” NIH President Kwon Jun-wook said.

At an event to celebrate the 14th Dementia Overcoming Day later in the day, Minister of Health and Welfare Kwon Deok-chul also said, “The government will continue to assure that dementia patients can live with dignity and asked for attention and participation from the public for people with dementia.”