Warm congratulations to Anders Rydström for the excellent defense at Karolinska Institutet last week of his Ph.D. thesis “Mental stimulation and multimodal trials to prevent cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease”.
Anders has showed that higher occupational complexity (the mental and social demands coming from one’s occupation) is associated with better cognitive function in older adults at risk of dementia, and that higher levels of occupational complexity might provide some resilience against the cognitive effects of Alzheimer’s Disease neuropathology. Anders has also explored if the level of complexity of an individual’s occupation is associated with the effect of the FINGER lifestyle intervention, showing that high complexity has relevance for the intervention effect on executive functions but not for other cognitive domains.
In all, these results support the advancement of dementia research towards a precision prevention approach, and can contribute to the development of more individualized treatments.
Thank you to
Opponent Prof. Ozioma Okonkwo
Chairman Dr. Daniel Ferreira Padilla
Examination board Prof. Bo Melin, Dr. Eero Vuoksimaa and Dr. Linda Magnusson
Main supervisor Dr. Francesca Mangialasche
Co-supervisors Prof. Miia Kivipelto, Prof. Ingemar Kåreholt, Prof. Lars Bäckman and Dr. Shireen Sindi, PhD.
