Zhezhen Jin

Department of BioStatistics

Columbia University


Some Statistical Issues and Methods for Alzheimer's Disease Studies

In this talk, some statistical issues and challenges that arise from Alzheimer's disease studies will be discussed with two real examples. One example is on the item selection and assessment that arise from a 40-item test by the standardized University of Pennsylvania Smell Identification Test (UPSIT) of olfactory function; This test is used to screen patients for the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease. Another example is on the analysis of health-related quality of life data that arise from Alzheimer's disease studies. Here patients' mental and physical conditions are measured over their follow-up periods and the resulting data are complicated by subject-specific measurement times and a possible occurrence of terminal events that are associated with outcome variables. Commonly used statistical methods will be reviewed and newly developed statistical methods will be presented. Simulation studies and the analysis of two real examples will also be presented.


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