Preventing Alzheimer’s Disease and Cognitive Decline Conference

For many older adults, cognitive health and performance remain stable over the course of their lifetime, with only a gradual and slight decline in short-term memory and reaction times. But for others, this normal, age-related decline in cognitive function progresses into a more serious state of cognitive impairment or into various forms of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease. Such loss of cognitive function—the ability to think, learn, remember, and reason—substantially interferes with everyday function. As researchers continue to explore changes in the brain that take place possibly decades before cognitive decline and dementia symptoms appear, they also hope to discover more about the relationship between normal age-related cognitive decline and the development of cognitive impairment or Alzheimer’s disease.