Community Research Spotlight – Dr. Gregory Jicha

Gregory Jicha, MD, PhD, directs the Telemedicine Cognitive Clinic, which serves rural populations across Kentucky, providing clinical care, education, social support, and research opportunities for persons suffering from Alzheimer's disease and related disorders.

Dr. Jicha came to the University of Kentucky in 2005 from the Mayo Clinic, where he was an integral member of the clinical core of the Mayo Alzheimer's Disease Research Center.

Since his arrival at UK, Dr. Jicha has led the clinical trial program for Alzheimer's disease to nationwide success with a recent number-one ranking in patient recruitment for Alzheimer's disease trials in the National Alzheimer's Cooperative Study Group, ahead of all other universities and Alzheimer's disease centers in the country.

More importantly, he has brought the hope for a cure for Alzheimer's disease to the hundreds of thousands of Kentuckians that suffer from this disorder.

A key component of Dr. Jicha's outreach efforts and success is
the development of a telemedicine outreach program. Dr. Jicha
designed the program to directly meet the needs of rural
patients and their families and caregivers, who do not have easy access to Lexington or other major cities for clinical care, support, educational or research opportunities.

The impetus for this program came as Dr. Jicha observed the hardships his patients endured to seek out the unrivaled quality care and support given by the UK Alzheimer's Disease Center.

"Traveling to Lexington can be especially hard on families and my patients with Alzheimer's disease. With the telemedicine program, I can see someone in Hazard at 9:00 a.m., cross the state for an appointment in Madisonville at 10:00 a.m., and be ready for my next patient at 11:00 a.m. in Morehead. You shouldn't have to live in, or need to travel to Lexington to take advantage of the resources of the UK Alzheimer's Disease Center," said Jicha.

Dr. Jicha has developed the telemedicine program to include not only cognitive assessment of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias, but also educational programs for community members, patients, families and caregivers.

Since telemedicine is interactive, Dr. Jicha can present to areas far from Lexington video topics such as "Maintaining Nutrition in Alzheimer's Disease," "How to Use Medications for Alzheimer's Disease" or "Genetics and Family Risks for Alzheimer's Disease," and allow time for a question-and-answer session afterward. "These educational programs directly improve the quality of life for persons affected by Alzheimer's disease throughout Kentucky," says Jicha.

Dr. Jicha has also used telemedicine as a valuable tool for research on Alzheimer's disease in Kentucky. The increased awareness of Alzheimer's disease from telemedicine outreach allows Dr. Jicha's research group to gather invaluable data on the risk factors associated with Alzheimer's disease that may be unique to rural populations in Kentucky, advancing research in the ultimate search for a cure.

Dr. Jicha partners with the Area Regional Health Centers, the Alzheimer's Association, and Kentucky Telecare, and he broadcasts to many Kentucky clinics and healthcare centers.

Dr. Jicha believes that the telemedicine program will be a model translational program, providing care, education, and a research focus that can be adopted by Alzheimer's disease and memory disorder clinics across the country. For more information about Dr. Jicha's telemedicine cognitive clinic, use the "Alzheimer's Telemedicine" link under Related Links.

Consequently, clinical and translational research in Kentucky communities has clear national applicability to all 2,308 rural counties in the United States, and especially to the 442 high-poverty counties, which tend to have the highest illness and death rates and the poorest quality-of-life measures.

"If anything is unique about Appalachia, other than the stereotypical image developed and maintained in the wider culture, it may be the way that the region isolates and magnifies so many of the problems and the potential solutions that are more generic to American society."

Accordingly, the CCTS has as its centerpiece a plan for the engagement of rural communities, both as sites for the conduct of and training in clinical and translational research, and as sources of research ideas. The overall goal of this key function is to transform existing mechanisms and provide new programs to effectively engage communities in the "circularity of translation," and thereby dramatically accelerate the movement of basic discoveries validated in clinical trials to tangible improvements in the health and well-being of the people who live in these communities in Kentucky and across the country.