Betula - aging, memory and dementia: 1988-1990

The Betula Project is a longitudinal study of aging, memory and dementia. Data was collected between 1988 - 2014. Then the study began with including 1000 randomly selected individs from the Umeå municipality in the age groups 20, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55, 60, 65, 70, 75 and 80 years. It was 100 in each age cohort, and the gender distribution was similar to the population with about as many men as women in the younger age groups, and about twice as many women as men in the age groups 70 and over. Five years later, wo more sample were included. The group has been monitored every five years: 1993, 1998, 2003, 2008 and 2013. For each sample, each participant completed a thorough physical examination with blood tests of a nurse and a careful examination of a memory tester. There are data collected from approximately 4,700 participants. On each occasion, data for about 2000 variables were collected for each participant, which includes data on demographics, health, illness, medication, social and cognitive factors. The Betula project has received funding for research infrastructures (large databases) from the Swedish Research Council. This means a major effort to make the Betula database available to researchers outside the project through collaborations with researchers within the Betulaproject. To Betulas database, genetic data and biological samples are also connected. Purpose: Study how memory functions change during adult life, to identify risk factors for dementia and to identify early preclinical signs of dementia and determine the critical factors of successful aging.