Building Clinical Capacity for Integration of Blood Based Biomarkers in Early Detection of Alzheimer’s Disease

Cognitive impairment and dementia due to Alzheimer’s disease (AD) pose a significant public health challenge as the population of older adults in the United States continues to grow. AD is now understood as a continuum rather than a discrete clinical entity, with pathologic changes beginning several years or even decades before the onset of cognitive symptoms. This concept has revolutionized the understanding of AD progression, and newly revised criteria for the diagnosis and staging of AD reflect these advances. In addition, the recent development and approval of blood-based biomarker tests (BBMs) can further enhance patient care through detection of pathologic changes to facilitate earlier diagnosis in symptomatic individuals. However, although BBMs offer an accessible and more cost-effective method for diagnosis of AD compared with traditional tests (ie, cerebrospinal fluid tests and imaging), effective integration of BBMs into routine clinical practice requires standardization through development of protocols and clinical pathways and training of clinical teams. Considering the rapid advances in this field, providers in both primary care and general neurology settings need to know who to test, when to test, which test to use, and how to interpret the results. To support primary care providers and neurologists in navigating this complexity and to support peer-to-peer learning, this training program, modeled on the CDC Training of Trainers approach, provides learners with the tools and resources to implement BBM testing in clinical practice to improve earlier diagnosis of AD.