Unit of Alzheimer's and Other Cognitive Disorders

The Hospital Clínic Barcelona has a multidisciplinary unit specifically focused on the diagnosis and care of people with cognitive impairment, especially those of neurodegenerative origin such as Alzheimer's disease, dementia with Lewy bodies, frontotemporal dementia, and primary progressive aphasia and neurodegenerative diseases, among others. The Alzheimer's and Other Cognitive Disorders Unit (UATC) assesses around 900 new patients each year and carries out around 2,500 subsequent visits, both from the Barcelona Esquerra Integrated Health Area (AISBE) and, in the case of rare diseases, from other areas of Catalonia. All currently approved procedures for the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative dementias (neuropsychological evaluations, cranial CT, cranial MRI, FDG PET, amyloid PET, etc.), biomarker studies in blood and cerebrospinal fluid, genetic studies, anatomopathological studies) are available and are carried out in the various units at the Hospital Clínic de Barcelona.

The UATC is the reference unit for diagnosis in the care route for community care for people with mild cognitive impairment or dementia in the Barcelona Esquerra Integrated Health Area (AISBE). It also has various sub-specialized programmes in which patients from other areas, both from Catalonia and other autonomous communities, are accepted. They include the following:

• The PICOGEN programme, an information and genetic counselling programme for familial dementias.
• The BIOMARK-DEM programme for the biological diagnosis of neurodegenerative diseases with cognitive impairment.
• Programme for early-onset Alzheimer's disease (onset <65 years).
• Programme for rare dementias: frontotemporal dementia, primary progressive aphasia, prion diseases, among others.

In addition to the approved pharmacological treatments, interested patients are offered the possibility of participating in clinical trials to evaluate the efficacy and safety of new pharmacological therapies. More than 7,000 therapeutic sessions are also offered every year as part of cognitive intervention programmes for patients with Alzheimer's disease, dementia with Lewy bodies, frontotemporal dementia and primary progressive aphasia. These sessions are held at the Day Hospital for Neurodegenerative Diseases of the Hospital Clínic de Barcelona, located at Carrer Reina Amàlia 37-39, Barcelona.

The UATC team is a multidisciplinary team that includes different medical specialists (neurologists, psychiatrists, neuroradiologists, nuclear physicians, clinical biochemists, geneticists, immunologists, anatomopathologists, family medicine, neuropsychologists and clinical psychologists, nurses, speech therapists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists and social workers).