In this ISLAND Newsletter

• 2023 will be a big year for ISLAND!
• Invitation - a new sleep study 
• Please let us know about about community events in your area
• Let's get fitter in 2023

Thanks for being involved in ISLAND and helping us reduce dementia risk in Tasmania. 

2023 will be a big year for ISLAND!

Welcome to 2023 and our first newsletter for the year. We want to look ahead at what we would like to achieve this year, with your continued support. We also want to remind you of some of our key outcomes and achievements up to this point in time. 

As depicted below, the three core components of the ISLAND Project research are completing your surveys and cognitive tests each year and providing a blood sample every two years. If you can only manage a few activities this year for ISLAND, we'd appreciate it if you would consider doing these three. 

Combining survey data with your results in cognitive tests and blood biomarkers will provide new insights into identifying and reducing risk of cognitive decline through ageing. 

Nearly 7,000 of you completed your first set of annual surveys back in 2019 and about half continue to be engaged with this part of the project. We have also had 1,557 of you provide a blood sample and 3,084 complete CANTAB, our gold standard cognitive assessment. We will ask you to do your surveys again in October and CANTAB and blood samples in approximately mid-2023. Thank you from the entire ISLAND team for your involvement in these three core activities. 

Perhaps most importantly, the illustration below shows how the dementia risk profile has improved for ISLAND participants since 2019 over the first two years from baseline (BL). Changes included increased cognitive and physical activity as well as people moving into the low-risk category for management of cholesterol and out of the high-risk category for alcohol consumption, through to better management of diabetes and adherence to a Mediterranean style diet. 

This is great news because it suggests that our methodology in ISLAND is working and helping people improve their own personal risk. Together, we can already show that our approach in ISLAND improving brain health in our population. Thank you again for your help and we hope to see even more of you get involved in 2023. 

Sleep Study - Olfactory & Actigraphy Project

Thank you to everyone who participated in the ISLAND Sleep Study last year. We are so grateful to the 2,900 people who completed our sleep questionnaires in 2022 and we are very excited to launch the next phase of this study early in 2023.

There is some evidence that people with altered sense of smell or altered sleep/wake patterns may have increased dementia risk, so we are interested in investigating these functions in the ISLAND Sleep Study cohort. For the Olfactory (sense of smell) & Actigraphy (sleep/wake pattern) Project we will invite a small group of people to use ‘scratch and sniff’ test cards to assess sense of smell, and to wear an actigraphy watch which measures body movements, and light and temperature from your environment. Invitations will be based on last year’s sleep study, so please don't be concerned if you don't receive an invitation this time.

Invitations for this project will be emailed to all eligible participants who completed the ISLAND Sleep Study questionnaires last year.  If you choose to participate in both parts of the project, you will be sent a parcel containing the ‘scratch and sniff’ cards and an activity watch, along with a reply-paid postage bag, so that all activities are completed in your own home and then returned via post. Once the results of your ‘scratch and sniff’ test have been analysed by our research team, we will also make your result available in the ISLAND portal. Thank you once again for your valued participation!

We hope to meet you in 2023

We're keen to bring ISLAND to local community events such as local festivals, larger markets or large community information sessions.

If you are aware of any that are happening in your region next year please let us know.

Also, if you would like to help us organise a large (more than 50 attendees) community information session in your area please contact us  at island@dementia.utas.edu.au. 

Let's get fitter in 2023

Do you want to increase the amount of exercise you do and perhaps meet some new people? Check out the Get Moving Tasmania website for information about physical activity programs across our state including Healthy Hobart, Fitness in the Park, Active Launceston and Glenorchy on the go!

Let's all try and get a little bit fitter in 2023!

The University of Tasmania received funding from the Australian Government. Views and conclusions expressed in this publication are those of its authors, and may not be the same as those held by the Department of Health.

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