ARC

Miia Kivipelto gives two popular-science lectures

kimberly.kane — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 10:14:54 +0000

ARC Professor Miia Kivipelto spoke about lifestyle factors that protect against dementia during Brain Day (Hjärnans Dag) on 23 April in Stockholm. The yearly event is organized by the Swedish Brain Foundation (Hjärnfonden) and was attended by nearly 1000 people.

Professor Kivipelto also spoke to an audience of approximately 1500 during the Swedish Dementia Days (Svenska Demensdagarna) in Karlstad, Sweden, on 30 May. She talked about the most recent findings and ongoing studies on risk and protective factors for dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Download her presentation here (in Swedish).

Two ARC employees interviewed as part of Karolinska Institutet video series

kimberly.kane — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 11:46:31 +0000

Professor Miia Kivipelto and Financial Administrator Cecilia Annerholm have been interviewed as part of Karolinska Institutet’s “Meet our colleagues” series. The videos, in Swedish, are found on Karolinska Institutet’s YouTube channel. To watch the videos, click on the names below:

Miia Kivipelto
Cecilia Annerholm

ARC-supervised bachelor’s essay nominated for national prize

kimberly.kane — Thu, 30 May 2013 08:25:08 +0000

Stockholm University’s Department of Social Work has nominated Rebecka Falk and Erica Risberg essay, “The tax rebate for household services—a necessary luxury” (“RUT – En nödvändig lyx”) to a competition for the best bachelor’s essay in the field of social work in Sweden in 2012. Falk and Risberg’s work was supervised by ARC researcher Pär Schön. The winning essay will be announced by the journal Social Worker (Socionomen) at a later date.

ARC psychologists benefit from experts’ comments at three-day retreat

kimberly.kane — Tue, 21 May 2013 08:19:49 +0000

Eighteen members of ARC’s psychology sector participated in a three-day scientific retreat on Lidingö in Sweden this month. The aim of the retreat was for sector members to receive constructive comments on their ongoing research from leading international experts in the sector’s fields of study. Each ARC researcher gave a 30-minute presentation about his or her work, which was followed by a 10-minute discussion.

International experts at the retreat included Professor Ulman Lindenberger of the Center for Lifespan Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin; Professor Naftali Raz of the Institute of Gerontology, Wayne State University, Detroit; and Professor Brent Small of the School of Aging Studies, University of South Florida, Tampa. Additional guests included Professor Laura Fratiglioni of ARC and Professor Lars Nyberg of Umeå University.

Ulman Lindenberger and Lars Nyberg held presentations about their ongoing research. Ulman Lindenberger spoke about experiences from pharmaco-genomic imaging research and Lars Nyberg gave an update on the Cognition, Brain, and Aging project (COBRA), a longitudinal study involving scientists from ARC, Umeå University, and the Max Planck Institute for Human Development.

The scientific retreat was made possible by an international collaboration grant from the Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research (Forskningsrådet för arbetsliv och socialvetenskap or FAS).

Retreat program

Laura Fratiglioni speaks at American Academy of Neurology meeting

kimberly.kane — Mon, 20 May 2013 12:34:54 +0000

ARC’s director Laura Fratiglioni was recently invited to speak at the
Frontiers in Translational Neuroscience Plenary Session of the 2013 annual
meeting of the American Academy of Neurology in San Diego. The topic of her
presentation was “Alzheimer’s Disease in an Aging World.”

Swedish National Study of Aging and Care publishes newsletter

kimberly.kane — Tue, 14 May 2013 08:36:14 +0000

The Swedish National Study of Aging and Care (SNAC), has published a new issue of its twice-yearly Swedish-language newsletter. SNAC was started at the request of the Swedish government in 2001 to help determine health and social services needs of older people in the future and how best to meet those needs. Studies are now ongoing in four parts of the country: Blekinge, Nordanstigs kommun, Skåne, and Stockholm. SNAC collects population-based data and information from health and social services records.

SNAC project leaders. Photo: Lena Noalt, Lund University

Together with the Stockholm Gerontology Research Center, ARC collaborates in the Stockholm branch of SNAC, SNAC-Kungsholmen, which aims to improve health and care and identify strategies that might prevent health problems in older adults. Participants are people 60 and older from the Stockholm neighborhood of Kungsholmen. Each participant spends half a day completing a social interview, clinical exam, and memory tests. The tests are repeated every sixth year until age 81, and every third year after that.

New ARC study on risk of dementia published in Neurology

kimberly.kane — Tue, 07 May 2013 14:59:23 +0000

A new study by ARC researchers Chengxuan Qiu, Eva von Strauss, Lars Bäckman, Bengt Winblad, and Laura Fratiglioni suggests that the risk of developing dementia may have declined over the past 20 years in Stockholm. The study, published in the online version of the journal Neurology, was the topic of a Karolinska Instituet press release and has received media attention in Sweden and abroad.

Abstract
Press release in English
Press release in Swedish
Article on Alzheimer’s Research UK website

House of Aging Research profiled in Affärstidningen Näringsliv

kimberly.kane — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 13:16:19 +0000

ARC, the Stockholm Gerontology Research Center, and the Swedish Dementia Center–which together constitute the House of Aging Research–are described in an article in “Swedish Life Science,” a supplement distributed with the most recent issue of Affärstidningen Näringsliv, a Swedish newspaper. The article also discusses the need for more research in aging and the Graduate School on Health and Aging at ARC.

The online article is found on page 10 of “Swedish Life Science.”

Dementia a threat to public health and the economy

kimberly.kane — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 11:20:38 +0000

Professors Bengt Winblad and Anders Wimo, both affiliated with ARC, contributed to an editorial published yesterday in the Swedish daily newspaper Svenska Dagbladet. The article, which focuses on the lack of balance between the magnitude of the problem of dementia and the funding for research devoted to addressing the problem, was co-written by five members of Swedish Brain Power. Swedish Brain Power is a national network of leading researchers in the fields of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig’s disease).

Bengt Winblad also appeared on Swedish radio in connection with the editorial.

Psychologist Martin Lövdén speaks about the aging brain at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

kimberly.kane — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 10:19:40 +0000

Earlier this year, ARC senior researcher Martin Lövdén spoke about the aging brain at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. The talk, part of a seminar on health inequalities, was recorded by Swedish educational television and can be watched on the Swedish educational television website (in English).