August 20, 2025
By Yona Lunsky
A few weeks ago, I was promoting my brain health — learning new things, getting lots of steps as I walked within and around Toronto’s Metro Convention Centre, and connecting with people from across Canada and around the world. I had the opportunity to attend the 2025 Alzheimer’s Association International Conference (AAIC), the world’s largest meeting focused on advancing dementia research and clinical practice.
This was my first time at AAIC and also my first major conference focused on aging and dementia. For this month’s blog, I thought I would share a few things I learned from this meeting and why they matter for the work we do.
Members of the Brain Health-IDD team at the AAIC Conference (from left to right: Yona, Marie-Joelle, Prachi, Mary, and Anupam).
One of the studies that perhaps received the most media attention was the U.S. POINTER study. It’s part of the World Wide FINGERS Network, a global initiative funded by the Alzheimer’s Association and inspired by research from Finland. That research showed how health promotion efforts with older adults — things like diet, exercise, heart health, and social engagement — can improve health outcomes, including cognitive function. (Canada has its own FINGERS research program, called CAN-THUMBS UP).
The POINTER study followed more than 2,000 older adults in the United States who were at risk for dementia. Participants received support to engage in activities that promote brain and overall health, and researchers tracked them over time to compare people randomized to a more intensive program with those in a less intensive one. Both groups showed cognitive benefits, with the more intensive program resulting in greater improvements in thinking and memory at a time when people usually experience cognitive decline.
This work dovetails beautifully with the Lancet Commission’s paper on dementia prevention. The 2024 update highlights that addressing modifiable risk factors such as hypertension, diabetes, hearing loss, and sleep can reduce the risk of dementia by up to 45%. The lead author of that report, Dr. Gill Livingston, also spoke at the conference, emphasizing that there is considerable hope about dementia prevention. She urged us to be ambitious about it and ensure underserved communities, including people with disabilities, are included in our work. And, as the POINTER study showed, brain health strategies can be taught, with meaningful changes possible even late in life. Over time (two years in this case), these changes make a tangible difference.
These findings echo what I often hear on one of my favourite podcasts, Defy Dementia: you are never too young or too old to take care of your brain health! (You can listen to Dr. Livingston discuss the Lancet Commission here, and listen to me talk about our Brain Health-IDD work with Dewlyn and Anna Lobo here.)
Seeing the POINTER study covered recently in the New York Times and Time Magazine highlighted for me how important this work is, and why I’m writing about it here. It’s exciting to see brain health making headlines, and even more exciting to know that our work is part of a growing movement toward prevention and healthy aging.
For those of you participating in our Brain Health-IDD program, the good news is that we are already focused on many of the same things highlighted by the POINTER study. Here are some of the ways we're supporting brain health together across Canada: