Impact of biomarker result disclosure on family and friends: REVEAL SCAN Study Partner Study
The discovery of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) biomarkers is transforming our understanding of AD to include a “preclinical” stage of AD in which individuals are cognitively and functionally unimpaired but have biomarkers that correlate with increased risk for developing AD dementia. At present, there is ongoing debate about the practical and ethical aspects of biomarker disclosure in the preclinical stage. Discussions typically focus on the effect on the cognitively unimpaired but at-risk individual. It is also essential, however, to understand how biomarker disclosure affects the at-risk individual’s family and friends. P3MB is gathering and analyzing data to see how biomarker disclosure affects participants and their study partners.
Emily A. Largent & Jason Karlawish, Preclinical Alzheimer’s Disease and the Dawn of the Pre-Caregiver, JAMA Neurology, doi:10.1001/jamaneurol.2019.0165 (2019).