The Cleveland Clinic has joined a worldwide effort to revolutionize diagnoses for Alzheimer’s disease. The hospital announced in August that it will participate in the Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative (DAC-SP) Accurate Diagnosis project, which aims to use blood-based tests for earlier and more accessible diagnoses.

The clinic is now part of a collection of eight sites in Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States that look to use blood-based biomarkers for more accurate and timely diagnoses. The Cleveland Clinic specifically plans to incorporate this diagnostic method at its Center for Geriatric Medicine. Additional support will come from Cleveland Clinic’s Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health for patients seeking confirmatory testing and new therapeutics. Saket Saxena, M.D., is a geriatrician at the center and the principal investigator on this project.

“Participating in this program is an important step toward integrating a timely clinical and biological diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease into dementia care pathways, which is expected to improve diagnostic accuracy and access to appropriate resources including therapeutics,” said Saxena in a news release by the Cleveland Clinic.

The Davos Alzheimer’s Collective (DAC), launched in 2021, aims to improve Alzheimer’s disease diagnoses. With their worldwide approach to research and clinical trials, the collective attempts to develop a network which will close the gap in treatment in different populations, allowing diagnoses to be accessible.

The DAC-SP intends to bring together worldwide leaders and healthcare experts to collaborate on solutions to Alzheimer’s, creating a blueprint that outlines the best method of integration of these diagnostic methods. Their Accurate Diagnosis project focuses on the blood-based test itself and its implementation, like the trials that will take place in Cleveland Clinic. Moreover, they will develop a cognitive assessment toolkit that provides a standard protocol and training resources in primary care settings.

Alzheimer’s disease affects one in 10 people older than 65 and one in three people over 85 years old. It involves the gradual decline of memory, mood, coordination and spatial reasoning, behavior and personality, reasoning and language, to the point where these changes are not noticeable by the patient.

With the DAC blueprint, accurate diagnosis for Alzheimer’s disease will be more available for populations of different incomes all over the world.

“We are committed to advancing timely diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease in all resource settings, around the world, ” said DAC Founding Chairman George Vradenburg in a news release from the Cleveland Clinic Newsroom. “The Accurate Diagnosis project in Cleveland Clinic will help catalyze healthcare system change and will make patient-centered care and support more widely accessible.”