The CoMed Study
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Identifying the Course of dementia using Medical records: the CoMed study
IRAS ID
245145
Contact name
Kelvin Jordan
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Keele University
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 11 months, 30 days
Research summary
The number of people living with dementia is increasing as the population ages. The UK government has initiated a "Dementia strategy" to respond to this increase, and has set four main goals; 1) to identify those with dementia as early as possible, 2) to prolong their independence, 3) to reduce the need for hospital and nursing home admissions, and 4) to delay the time until death. So far lots of research has looked at what factors might cause or increase the risk of dementia, but less is known about how dementia affects people over time once they have dementia. One of the quickest and efficient ways to identify the actual course of dementia may be to use existing medical records from primary care. Primary care medical records are those kept by the patient’s GP. Having the ability to look at the course of dementia over time in these records will help identify people who have a different course (for example a faster and more severe course) and also identify the factors that alter that course. This information would be useful to clinicians and indicate potential targets for treatment in the future to alter the course of someone’s disease. To assess whether this is possible, we wish to contact around 1000 patients with dementia who have recently been seen by a dementia service (where patients with a diagnosis of dementia are seen normally every year). We will ask for consent to link their primary care medical records (medical records kept by their GP) to their dementia service medical records. We hope about 400 patients will give us this consent. We can then assess how well the potential markers of disease progression identified from their primary care medical records relate to actual changes in disease course from their dementia service medical records.
REC name
Wales REC 7
REC reference
18/WA/0423
Date of REC Opinion
9 Jan 2019
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion