Personality, Alzheimer's disease and behavioural and cognitive symptoms of dementia: the PACO prospective cohort study protocol

Isabelle Rouch, Jean-Michel Dorey, Nawèle Boublay, Marie-Anne Henaff, Florence Dibie-Racoupeau, Zaza Makaroff, Sandrine Harston, Michel Benoit, Marie-Odile Barrellon, Denis Fédérico, Bernard Laurent, Catherine Padovan, Pierre Krolak-Salmon, the PACO group

Alzheimer's disease is characterised by a loss of cognitive function and behavioural problems as set out in the term "Behavioural and Psychological Symptoms of Dementia". These behavioural symptoms have heavy consequences for the patients and their families.A greater understanding of behavioural symptoms risk factors would allow better detection of those patients, a better understanding of crisis situations and better management of these patients. Some retrospective studies or simple observations suggested that personality could play a role in the occurrence of behavioural symptoms. Finally, performance in social cognition like facial recognition and perspective taking could be linked to certain personality traits and the subsequent risks of behavioural symptoms.We propose to clarify this through a prospective, multicentre, multidisciplinary study.Main Objective :- To assess the effect of personality and life events on the risk of developing behavioural symptoms.Secondary Objectives :- To evaluate, at the time of inclusion, the connection between personality and performance in social cognition tests;- To evaluate the correlation between performance in social cognition at inclusion and the risks of occurrence of behavioural symptoms;- To evaluate the correlation between regional cerebral atrophy, using brain Magnetic Resonance Imaging at baseline, and the risk of behavioural symptoms.