ARC Professors Miia Kivipelto and Laura Fratiglioni will participate in a 5.8 million euro European Union Project called HATICE, Healthy Aging Through Internet Counseling in the Elderly. Professor Kivipelto will lead the ARC portion of the HATICE project, which involves her research teams at Karolinska Institutet and the University of Eastern Finland.
HATICE will pool data from three large ongoing European dementia prevention trials, analyze the data, and use it to create an easy-to-use internet platform for elderly people. The platform will motivate and support behavioral changes that can prevent or postpone dementia. Personalized plans will target risk factors for cardiovascular disease such as overweight, smoking, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure. Platform users will be able to contact specialist nurses via phone, email, chat, and Skype for support with behavioral changes.
Together with the University of Eastern Finland, the ARC team is working to design a prevention program that can be used in the health care systems of all the countries involved in the HATICE. Furthermore, ARC is responsible for adequate dissemination of results of the project. These results will be communicated to different target audiences and stakeholders, including the scientific community (primary care, geriatric medicine, neurology, internal medicine, cardiovascular medicine, epidemiology, and public health professionals); paramedic communities (physiotherapists, dieticians, and practice nurses); patient advocacy groups; policy makers, including health insurance companies; and industry, especially people working with information and communication technology in health care.
Follow HATICE on a new website, where you can also read a press release about the project.