Understanding Brain Health: Preventing Dementia (FutureLearn)

50 million people worldwide currently live with dementia. This number is projected to increase to over 150 million by the year 2050.

A dementia diagnosis represents an advanced stage of disease, with the brain diseases that lead to dementia actually beginning many years before symptoms emerge. This provides a window of opportunity to reduce the risk of dementia by proactively protecting our brain health.
Learn about risk factors for brain disease

On this course, you’ll explore the pathological processes which underpin the diseases that lead to dementia.

You’ll learn how we can predict and detect these brain diseases earlier by managing our own personal risk factors and designing interventions to improve brain health health across the life-course.
Explore the latest developments in brain health research

This course has been created by the University of Edinburgh in partnership with Brain Health Scotland and is endorsed by Alzheimer Scotland.

With access to up-to-date brain health and dementia research, you’ll learn about the design of clinical trials for identifying interventions to prevent dementia.

You’ll also explore how health data can be collected and used to develop risk prediction tools for degenerative brain diseases and inform personalised prevention plans.
Promote positive brain health

In order to look towards a future without dementia, public health initiatives must evolve to promote positive brain health for everyone.

Through engaging with this course, you’ll build the skills to evaluate the cultural shift required to move away from thinking of dementia and late-stage disease and towards prioritising brain health throughout life.

What topics will you cover?

- How does the brain work and what goes wrong to cause neurodegenerative diseases?

- How can we predict risk and detect disease early?

- How can we manage risk factors and design interventions to improve brain health?

- How must public health and clinical practice adapt to prevent dementia?

- How do we act on a global scale to shift towards a culture of positive brain health?

Learning on this course

You can take this self-guided course and learn at your own pace. On every step of the course you can meet other learners, share your ideas and join in with active discussions in the comments.

What will you achieve?

By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...

- Develop an understanding of the pathological processes which underpin the diseases that lead to dementia, how these processes begin in mid-life and provide a window of opportunity to reduce risk of dementia in later life

- Identify risk factors for neurodegenerative disease and explain that brain health can be protected through lifestyle choices and risk modification behaviours

- Evaluate the latest methods in brain health research, including the design of clinical trials for interventions to prevent dementia

- Explore the ways health data can be gathered and used to develop risk prediction tools for neurodegenerative disease that inform personalised prevention plans

- Assess the public health and clinical practice actions needed to help improve brain health at a population and individual level and evaluate the impact of health inequalities on a local and global scale

Who is the course for?

This course will appeal to anyone interested in understanding ways to tackle the dementia epidemic and protect brain health through proactively addressing risk factors and early disease detection.

The course is also designed for healthcare professionals looking to advance their professional development and build knowledge of the latest evidence-based brain health practices.