Tracey Smith, Director of Community Health at the Illinois Public Health Association (IPHA), appeared on a recent episode of the Brain Trust podcast to talk about how community health workers (CHWs) can partner with local family medicine physicians to improve early detection of Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias.

The IPHA has received a grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration to provide training to CHWs and services to their employers. Smith noted that there are a variety of potential roles for CHWs in dementia-related disease services, including the administration of the AD8 dementia screening interview tool, which has eight questions that CHWs can use to start a conversation that can lead to detection.

Joining Smith on the podcast was Angelia Gower, of the NAACP in Madison, Illinois. She spoke about her organization’s work connecting people with resources in Madison, Granite City, Venice, and Brooklyn – an area she described as 95% African American, “poverty-driven,” with a large elderly population but largely devoid of physicians and health care resources.

The Brain Trust Project, administered by the Illinois Academy of Family Physicians, is intended as provider education for diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. It includes the podcast series and an online toolkit. The clinician-led podcast offers CME credits that meet the 2023 State of Illinois requirements for physician license renewal for recognizing dementia.

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