The Dallas Asthma Brain and Cognition (ABC) Study
Asthma is a chronic inflammatory airway disease that leads to episodic symptom exacerbations, which exerts a substantial burden on quality of life and can influence other health domains if not adequately controlled. Asthma prevalence rates have increased in the past decade, affecting 8.4% (25.7 million people) of the United States population. The economic costs of asthma have been estimated annually with $56 billion in the US alone. Despite progress in pharmacological treatment, overall asthma control remains unsatisfactory and treatment non-adherence is extremely high. Asthma is particularly under diagnosed and understudied in aging adults. This problem will increase in coming decades given demographic trends and will disproportionally contribute to the societal and personal economic costs associated with asthma treatment and management. In the proposed 4-year project we will evaluate, in a two-session assessment recruiting a total of 126 asthma patients and 66 healthy controls aged 40-69 years, the extent to which asthma and aging are associated with changes in cognition and brain chemistry, structure, and function.
• For asthma patients: diagnosis of asthma (verified by a medical documentation) for at least 2 years; for healthy volunteers: no significant medical or psychiatric history.
• Ages 40 to 69 years old.
• Proficient in English.
• Education level of at least 10th grade level.