YouTube-ing your way to neurological knowledge

摘要

YouTube, the much-visited internet video-sharing site, is usually a place people go for fun, but could its power to attract millions of users be harnessed to increase awareness of neurodegenerative diseases among patients, their families, and physicians? Furthermore, could it act as a source of advice and support to caregivers or be tapped to promote early diagnosis and bring more patients into clinical trials sooner? These are some of the questions that the Memory and Aging Center at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF, San Francisco, USA) hopes will be answered in the affirmative by its new YouTube channel. The centre is also using another social networking site, Facebook, to host its Defeat Dementia campaign.