Qatar University Health (QU Health) yesterday held an awareness event on the Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) to commemorate World Alzheimer’s Awareness Day, and as part of its ongoing commitment to raise community awareness on health issues relevant to Qatar.
The event followed the international theme for 2016; “remember me” and engaged students, faculty and staff from across the university as well as community members.
The  programme included an open session “Open Mic” during which students shared stories on Alzheimer’s related topics such as poems, excerpts from novels and patient’s family accounts; the screening of the film,  Still Alice (2014) which tells the story of a 50-year-old linguistics professor who is diagnosed with early onset AD; and an exhibition of 14 panels featuring information on AD causes, symptoms, diagnosis and treatment. The exhibition area also featured a “Wall of Memories” on which participants could post sticky note describing a certain personal memory.
The programme also included a lecture on “Alzheimer’s Disease: An Overview of Diagnosis and Treatment” by Dr Basim Uthman, vice chair of neurology and professor of clinical neurology and clinical neuroscience at Weill Cornell Medicine – Qatar, and consultant at Hamad Medical Corporation.
Dr Uthman noted that AD is the most common type of neurodegenerative dementias and the sixth most common cause of death in the US. “AD is characterised by an insidious onset of slowly progressive decline in at least two components of cognitive or behavioural domains not explained by other neurologic, psychiatric, or general medical disorders that can interfere with cognition or behaviour”, he said, adding, “The decline is associated with functional impairment and interference with normal activities of daily life and the course of the disease is irreversible at the present time.”
Dr Uthman explained that while most cases of AD are sporadic, familial predisposition exists and the presence of the APOE4 genotype may be considered a risk factor, though neither sufficient nor necessary, for developing the disease.
On the sidelines of the event, a series of activities was held throughout the week.
They included an Alzheimer’s awareness social media campaign using the hashtags #StopAlzNow #AlzheimersAwareness, digital-announcement screens on AD related facts and statistics, as well as a wall of memories on which students wrote about a special memory and posted a photo on social media from a special memory with the hashtag for 2016 World Alzheimer’s Awareness Day #rememberme.