New Investments in the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging
03/05/2021
A $9.5-million investment by the Government of Canada in the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA) will renew the infrastructure of the CLSA research platform, ensuring its progress in generating knowledge that promotes the health and well-being of older adults and informs the development of programs and policies for Canada’s aging population.
“As one of CLSA’s collection sites, we’re excited to receive this funding. An investment like this makes all the difference in helping the Bruyère Research Institute and CLSA collection sites continue important work in developing a data platform that enables research to improve the health of all Canadians,” says Vanessa Taler, PhD, the CLSA lead site investigator at the Bruyère Research Institute.
Launched in 2010, the CLSA is Canada’s largest study of aging following more than 50,000 individuals who were between the ages of 45 and 85 at recruitment, for 20 years. This investment, made through the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), will position the CLSA to build critical tools to help identify the early causes of chronic health conditions such as mobility impairment, disability and cognitive decline.
Bruyère’s focus on aging and older adults makes involvement with the CLSA a vital part of our work in research and care delivery. Having a clear understanding of the determinants of patient quality of life, function, independence, and autonomy, as measured in a large, population-based sample, will be paramount in improving outcomes in these areas.
Investigators at the Bruyère Research Institute are specifically using CLSA data in conjunction with other research initiatives to examine outcomes of cognitive training in people with mild cognitive impairment, to identify markers of mild cognitive impairment, develop tools for assessment of neuropsychological function in speakers in various languages, and to examine the impact of subjective cognitive decline on cognitive performance in cognitively healthy older adults, and to examine links between subjective cognitive decline and cognitive performance.