On 28 March 2019, the Amsterdam University Medical Center (UMC) hosted their second event for all EPAD participants and study partners. This year, around 120 people visited the medical center to receive updates on the still ongoing EPAD study, received lectures from the study team on the different types of data that is being collected (i.e. neuropsychological assessments, MRI, and CSF), and got to interact with the researchers.

Representing the AMYPAD project during the event, researcher Lyduine Collij and research assistants Ilona Bader and Yvonne de Gier also attended. After a lecture given by Lyduine on amyloid PET, the AMYPAD study design and collaborative EPAD/AMYPAD aims, participants were invited to sign up for receiving the AMYPAD study information letter and interact with all three AMYPAD researchers to ask any remaining questions. In total, 23 new participants signed up, making the day a huge success!

Amsterdam UMC currently has scanned 68 participants and 10 more are already planned across the next few months. We aim to include everyone currently enrolled in the EPAD study, meaning that there are about 100 more scans to go. With events like these and the direct interaction between researchers and participants, we were able to further understand the motivation of volunteers for participating in these types of studies and implement successful recruitment strategy.