Successful Recruitment of Centenarians for Post-Mortem Brain Donation: Results from the Georgia Centenarian Study
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The Department of Human Development and Family Studies focuses on the interactions among individuals, families, and their resources and environments throughout their lifespans. It consists of three majors: Child, Adult, and Family Services (preparing students to work for agencies serving children, youth, adults, and families); Family Finance, Housing, and Policy (preparing students for work as financial counselors, insurance agents, loan-officers, lobbyists, policy experts, etc); and Early Childhood Education (preparing students to teach and work with young children and their families).
History
The Department of Human Development and Family Studies was formed in 1991 from the merger of the Department of Family Environment and the Department of Child Development.
Dates of Existence
1991-present
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- College of Human Sciences (parent college)
- Department of Child Development (predecessor)
- Department of Family Environment (predecessor)
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Abstract
Objective
Brain donation and neuropathological examination of brain tissues is the only way to obtain definitive diagnostic information on research subjects enrolled in aging studies. We investigated predictors of brain donation in a population-based study of centenarians in Phase III of the Georgia Centenarian Study (GCS).
Methods
Sixty-six individuals (mean age = 100.6 years, 91% female, 20% African American) were successfully recruited from the core sample of 244 individuals residing in 44 counties of Northeast Georgia to provide brain donation.
Results
Bivariate (t-tests, chi-square tests) and multivariate analyses (logistic regression) showed no significant differences between donors and non-donors across a wide range of demographic, religious, personality, cognitive and physical functioning characteristics.
Conclusions
We succeeded in recruiting a diverse, population-based sample of centenarians for brain donation. Our findings also suggest that barriers to brain donation reported in other studies may have less impact in these exceptional survivors.
Comments
This article is published as Shaw, Kathy, Marla Gearing, Adam Davey, Molly Burgess, Leonard W. Poon, Peter Martin, and Robert C. Green. "Successful recruitment of centenarians for post-mortem brain donation: results from the Georgia Centenarian Study." The journal of bioscience and medicine 2, no. 1 (2012). Posted with permission.