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ARIA in Practice: Aligning Decisions Across the Care Pathway - Module 3 Restoring Guideline Based Decisions AD Therapy Pauses, Re-Initiation and Dose Modification

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Description

This activity is supported by an independent education grant from Lilly. This online education program has been designed for healthcare professionals globally, excluding the United Kingdom.

Join Dr. Anton Porsteinsson for a practical, case-driven session on managing amyloid-related imaging abnormalities (ARIA) during anti-amyloid Alzheimer’s disease therapy. Following a longitudinal patient case, Dr. Porsteinsson outlines a clear, label-concordant framework for navigating treatment pauses, MRI surveillance, safe re-initiation, and acute care handoffs—helping care teams eliminate decision paralysis and keep patients safely on track.

Session Highlights

  • Label-Concordant ARIA Triage: Apply symptom status and radiographic severity thresholds to decide when to continue, pause, or permanently discontinue therapy.
  • Evidence-Based Re-initiation: Confirm complete ARIA-E resolution and ARIA-H stabilization before resuming standard label-directed doses—avoiding unvalidated empiric dose reductions.
  • Longitudinal Case Walkthrough: Trace a patient’s journey from mild symptomatic ARIA and four-week MRI follow-up through documented restart and emergency care triage.
  • Seamless Care Coordination: Prevent missed scans and communication breakdowns with single-point decision ownership, consistent MRI protocols, and patient alert cards.

Who Should Watch

This program is designed for healthcare professionals involved in Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis, imaging, treatment, and acute evaluation.

Faculty

Anton Porsteinsson, MD, is the Director of the University of Rochester Alzheimer's Disease Care, Research and Education Program (AD-CARE) and the William B. and Sheila Konar Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. Board-certified in Psychiatry with specialized qualifications in Geriatric Psychiatry, he is an internationally recognized authority on Alzheimer's disease, dementia, and memory disorders. Dr. Porsteinsson's distinguished career focuses on clinical trials, biomarkers, neuroimaging, and novel pharmacologic therapies aimed at addressing both cognitive loss and behavioral disturbances. As a leading investigator for prominent national prevention and treatment trials and the author of hundreds of research publications, he brings profound expertise to this session on navigating complex treatment decisions and coordinating multidisciplinary care across the patient pathway.

Disclosures

Partners for Advancing Clinical Education (Partners) requires every individual in a position to control educational content to disclose all financial relationships with ineligible companies that have occurred within the past 24 months. Ineligible companies are organizations whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling, or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients.

All relevant financial relationships for anyone with the ability to control the content of this educational activity are listed below and have been mitigated according to Partners policies. Others involved in the planning of this activity have no relevant financial relationships.

Anton Porsteinsson has the following relevant financial relationships: Consultant: Acadia; Alzheon; Axsome; Beren Therapeutics; Biogen; BMS; Cognition Therapeutics; Cognito; Eli Lilly; MapLight Therapeutics; Neumora; Novartis; ONO Pharmaceuticals; Otsuka; Voyager; Xenon. Advisor: Acadia; Axsome; Beren Therapeutics; Biogen; Eli Lilly. Speaker: Acadia; Axsome; Beren Therapeutics; Biogen; Eli Lilly. Researcher: Eisai; Eli Lilly; Roche.

Joint Accreditation Statement

In support of improving patient care, this activity has been planned and implemented by Partners for Advancing Clinical Education (Partners) and MedAll. Partners is jointly accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), and the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), to provide continuing education for the healthcare team.

Physician Continuing Education

Partners designates this enduring material for a maximum of 0.25 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

Nursing Continuing Professional Development

The maximum number of hours awarded for this Nursing Continuing Professional Development activity is 0.25 ANCC contact hours.

PA Continuing Medical Education

Partners has been authorized by the American Academy of PAs (AAPA) to award AAPA Category 1 CME credit for activities planned in accordance with AAPA CME Criteria. This activity is designated for 0.25 AAPA Category 1 CME credits. PAs should only claim credit commensurate with the extent of their participation.

Disclosure of Unlabeled Use

This educational activity may contain discussion of published and/or investigational uses of agents that are not indicated by the FDA. The planners of this activity do not recommend the use of any agent outside of the labeled indications. The opinions expressed in the educational activity are those of the faculty and do not necessarily represent the views of the planners. Please refer to the official prescribing information for each product for discussion of approved indications, contraindications, and warnings.

Disclaimer

Participants have an implied responsibility to use the newly acquired information to enhance patient outcomes and their own professional development. The information presented in this activity is not meant to serve as a guideline for patient management. Any procedures, medications, or other courses of diagnosis or treatment discussed or suggested in this activity should not be used by clinicians without evaluation of their patient’s conditions and possible contraindications and/or dangers in use, review of any applicable manufacturer’s product information, and comparison with recommendations of other authorities.

This continuing education activity is active starting November 13th 2026, and will expire on August 4th 2027.

Estimated time to complete this activity: 15 Minutes

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Computer generated transcript

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The following transcript was generated automatically from the content and has not been checked or corrected manually.

My name is Doctor Anton Thorstensen, and I'm a geriatric neuropsychiatrist and memory disorder specialist at the University of Rochester School of Medicine in Rochester, New York. Welcome to Restoring guideline-based Decisions, Alzheimer's Disease therapy pauses, reinitiation, and dose modification. Detection is the start of management, not the endpoint. What I mean by that is that you remember Margaret, the patient that we discussed previously who was undergoing anti-amyloid therapy when she was discovered to have new symptomatic RA E and limited new RAH, that is two new microhemorrhages, on a scheduled MRI. What we, uh, need to do is respond to that. So, We've got to detect the emergence of AI. And uh most AA is clinically silent. So thus, we have, um, scheduled MRI monitoring with the AA uh protocol in terms of the sequences that are included. And they need to be read in the right way so that we can communicate to the clinician who is making the decisions what is the new event, what are the new findings, and Uh, that allows us to act under the applicable label in terms of is it symptomatic or not symptomatic, is the radiographic severity mild, moderate, or severe. If RE is present, we have to regularly reassess, and that means if it was symptomatic or even if it is silent at the beginning to make sure that clinical symptoms either recede if they were present. Or do not emerge, but also we have to monitor the MRI findings and the resolution of the ARIA E and the stabilization of ARIA 8, that's the microhemorrhages, the superficial cirrhosis, etc. Based on these findings, we have to decide whether to uh resume therapy. Continue the pause or discontinue treatment because of the severity of the findings. So in order for this to be done, we have to be prepared. It needs to be clear where does the responsibility for this decision making lie. So there isn't some sort of paralysis that happens where nobody is making decisions because not making a decision is a decision in itself. What we do know about anti-amyloid therapy is that the benefit directly relates to the degree of amyloid resolution, how much of the brain amyloid is mobilized and cleared, and that is clearly connected with the dose and the frequency and the amount of completed infusions. So There are 4 inputs that determine the immediate response. Like I said before, is the aria symptomatic or not? Over 75% of RE is clinically silent. But if symptoms are present, it necessitates a pause in treatment, even if the symptoms are mild. How did the symptoms emerge? How are they progressing? And one of the things that I have, uh, uh, tended to do over the years when I manage people with, um, disease modifying treatment targeting, uh, amyloid with antibodies. is to be very thorough in the beginning. What are some of the most common symptoms? For example, headache, and headache is a pretty common symptom. There are people that have their type of headache, mild headache intermittently, and What may distinguish a headache that is associated with new onset aria is if there's a change in the frequency, the nature of the symptoms, or the intensity of the symptoms. How is it progressing? Is it receding and disappearing, uh, or is it getting worse? Uh, for AE. What they determined there is the radiographic severity. Is it mild, where we just have a limited size in one area? Is it moderate, where we may have a limited size in two areas or one slightly larger, or is it severe where the area is quite widespread? The RH or the, uh, bleedings. So, is this microhemorrhages? And uh How many And is this addition to microhemorrhages that were present at the baseline, or was the MRI, the baseline MRI, completely clear and free? And one of the things that we have to think about here is, are we using the same scanner and the same technique? Are we using the same sequences? Because, for example, um, some of the sequences that we use may be more sensitive for RH than others. And if you switch between sequences, you may get the wrong impression. We are also looking for superficial cirrhosis as well as macro bleeds. Mild ARIAH. is basically 4 or less microhemorrhages. Moderate is 5 to 9. And the severe is 10 or more. For superficial cirrhosis, if we have 1 that is mild, if we have 2, it's moderate, and more than 2, it's severe. We also have to be thoughtful about the treatment context, and that is we've highlighted the importance of alignment. What I mean by that is that we're all on the same page, that the right work has been done right from the get-go in terms of educating the patient and the partner, the care partner, about what to expect. And it's important to clarify the risk of AAE and AAH based on your clinical presentation for this patient, the baseline MRI, the medical history, and the genotyping, particularly if you are an E4 carrier, most importantly, E4 homocyte, you got two copies of 8.4. But Most importantly, you don't want the first conversation about AI to be when it has emerged on an MRI, whether that is regularly scheduled MRI as part of the monitoring or because clinical symptoms emerged. Let's look at the next poll. What should the immediate plan include? I just want to refresh your memory about Margaret. She developed symptomatic RAE and the symptoms were pretty mild. It was just a mild headache. But because of the symptoms associated with the radiographic findings that were relatively mild as well, one area of area E and two new microhemorrhages, but the applicable label directs interruption. But what should the immediate plan include? A, continue treatment, reassess only if symptoms become more severe. B, interrupt for label, assess, schedule MRI for monitoring of the area that is present, and this, uh, both the area E and the AAH and design review ownership. C, discontinue permanently because symptomatic aria predicts future recurrences. D, reduce the dose empirically and keep the original MRI schedule, or E, hold treatment and defer reassessment until the next routine visit. Go ahead and vote The correct answer here is B. Interrupt her label because she had the headache, and the headache was clearly.