Sara Garcia Ptacek

Sara Garcia Ptacek

Biträdande Lektor | Docent
Besöksadress: Blickagången 16, 14152 Huddinge
Postadress: H1 Neurobiologi, vårdvetenskap och samhälle, H1 Klinisk geriatrik Eriksdotter, 171 77 Stockholm
Del av:

Om mig

  • Dementia epidemiology and clinical dementia research. Neurologist with a
    clinical practice in the Cognitive Clinic, KS, Solna
    I am a neurologist working clinically at the Cognitive Clinic, Aging Brain
    Theme in Karolinska University Hospital in Solna. My PhD was on dementia
    epidemiology and my current research employs epidemiological methods to
    address questions on dementia, cognition, aging, access to care (depending on
    comorbidities and socioeconomics), and, lately, COVID-19.
    2023 Docent in Neurosciences at Karolinska Institutet, Sweden.
    2019 Fellow of the European Board of Neurology (FEBN)
    2017-2020: Postdoctoral fellowship funded by the Swedish Society of Medical
    Research.
    2017 Prize for Clinical Thesis from the Spanish National Royal Academy of
    Medicine
    2015 Excellence prize for PhD thesis from Universidad Complutense de Madrid
    *2015 PhD Thesis. "Dementia: preclinical stages and mortality in Swedish
    cohorts".* Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain. Supervisors: Maria Luz
    Cuadrado (Universidad Complutense de Madrid-tutor and thesis director) and
    Maria Eriksdotter (Karolinska Institutet-thesis director). Cum Laude and
    European Mention.
    https://eprints.ucm.es/34377/1/T36508.pdf [1]
    [1] https://eprints.ucm.es/34377/1/T36508.pdf

Forskningsbeskrivning

  • *Medication repurposing to slow cognitive decline in dementia:*
    Medication repurposing is a cost and time-effective way to discover new
    treatments. Swedish registers are a unique tool to detect medication
    candidates for repurposing. The Swedish Dementia Registry (SveDem
    www.svedem.se) has >100000 patients and repeated measures of cognition over
    time (measured with the Mini-Mental State Examination—MMSE), making it
    perfect to examine whether certain medications are associated with less
    cognitive decline in patients with dementia. We propose a study combining
    traditional cohort studies and newer artificial intelligence (machine
    learning) techniques to detect medications associated with slower cognitive
    decline in patients from SveDem. We will test pre-specified hypotheses since
    we suspect specific medications are better candidates to prevent cognitive
    decline, but we will also let the machine learning algorithms explore the
    data to find associations that we do not suspect in advance. Finally, the
    candidate medications will be tested in animal and cellular models to
    determine the mechanisms of their effects.
    *Influence of COVID-19 and the pandemic on care, treatment and cognition of
    persons with dementia in Sweden:*
    The Covid-19 pandemic has impacted the health and livelihood of most people
    worldwide but has disproportionately affected individuals in disadvantaged
    positions. We aim to examine the incidence and consequences of Covid-19 and
    the greater consequences of the pandemic in individuals with dementia. We
    identified individuals with Covid-19 from SmiNet and age, sex and region
    matched controls. Merged registries provided information on socioeconomic
    position in the years before and after Covid-19, social support and care,
    medications, dementia diagnosis and other comorbidities and mortality.
    Because Covid-19 disrupts care in patients with dementia, we use the Swedish
    Dementia Registry (SveDem), to determine how patients with dementia,
    specifically, fared during the pandemic. At present, we are have obtained
    this dataset and are actively seeking funding for this project.

Artiklar

Alla övriga publikationer

Forskningsbidrag

  • Nya innovativa vägar mot Alzheimers sjukdom: Vätskebiomarkörer och intracellulära behandlingar
    Private donation from Leif Lundblad Family and others
    1 October 2023 - 30 September 2026
  • Causal inference using Dynamic Bayesian Networks to find medications related to slow cognitive decline in dementia: Studies from the Swedish Dementia Registry
    Loo and Hans Osterman Foundation 2022
    1 July 2022 - 1 July 2023

Anställningar

  • Biträdande Lektor, Neurobiologi, vårdvetenskap och samhälle, Karolinska Institutet, 2021-2027

Examina och utbildning

  • Docent, Neurovetenskap, Karolinska Institutet, 2023

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