OPTIMA’s mission: To advance our understanding of the causes, treatment and prevention of dementia in the context of providing support and education for research participants and carers.

Our research has contributed to the evidence that Alzheimer’s is a true disease.  In revealing the differences between normal brain ageing and diseases like Alzheimer's disease, OPTIMA has helped lay the foundations for the development of prevention and treatment.

Our present objectives: OPTIMA and the Biomedical Research Centre clinical programme are working together:

• To identify potential biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease, including those in CSF and aspects of neuroimaging, that will improve early diagnosis and also act as indicators of disease progression

• To identify new modifiablerisk factors for Alzheimer’s disease or for cognitive decline
  

• Plan trials to see if modification of these new risk factors by simple interventions in large populations reduces the risk of developing cognitive impairment and dementia
  

• To evaluate new treatments for Alzheimer’s disease and to develop methods to reduce the length of a subject's exposure to new drugs (at the proof of concept stage) in trials, and also reduce the number of subjects who need to be exposed to a potential new drug
  

• To improve existing, and develop better, outcome measures for use in clinical trials of new drugs, i.e. measures that better reflect the real impact of treatments on a patient and carer's quality of life
  

The OPTIMA Approach: An important feature of OPTIMA’s approach to research is its emphasis on building a long-term relationship with its large group of participants and their families.  This relationship has allowed the team to collect a significant amount of information over many years.  There are some people who are continuing to take part in the main research study who were recruited into the project during the very early stages of the research. OPTIMA is a University of Oxford research study primarily based at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. It is a collaborative venture and is working increasingly closely with the Oxford Biomedical Research Centre dementia translational clinical programme, also led by Professor Gordon Wilcock.

The following departments are, or have been, involved in the research:

The University of Oxford: 

• Physiology Anatomy & Genetics
• Pharmacology
• Neuropathology
• Psychiatry
• Radiology
• Clinical Neurology
• Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine
  

The Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust:

• Biomedical Research Centre
• Neuropathology (NHS)
• Neuroradiology