Alex Bahar-Fuchs

People of all ages, but particularly older people, fear losing their memory, and this anxiety is in part fuelled by commercial marketing of unregulated techniques (e.g. ‘brain training’) which claim not only to enhance cognitive functions (memory, thinking, attention), but even to prevent dementia. While many of these products are easily found (e.g. online, app downloads) there is no equivalent access to the relevant evidence base in a trustworthy form that is also user friendly for the broadest possible range of stakeholders (e.g. researchers, policy makers, dementia consumers, health professionals, entrepreneurs, journalists, the general public). 

Our project addresses the science-implementation gap with a unique international collaboration to build a world-first freely accessible web-based searchable repository of information about cognition-focused interventions for older persons, covering the spectrum of health to dementia: CIDER (Cognitive Intervention Design, Evaluation, and Reporting).

Dr Alex Bahar-Fuchs is a Clinical Neuropsychologist and a NHMRC Early Career Fellow with The Academic Unit for Psychiatry of Old Age, The University of Melbourne.