The National Alzheimer's Coordinating Center (NACC) database: An Alzheimer disease database

The National Alzheimer's Coordinating Center (NACC) is responsible for developing and maintaining a database of patient information collected from the 29 Alzheimer disease centers (ADCs) funded by the National Institute on Aging. Each of the centers collects center-determined data elements on patients enrolled into its center and transmits a minimum dataset to NACC. Data are managed differently at each center depending on that center's research needs. The centers' data systems vary from a single personal computer running spreadsheet software to a network of servers running an advanced data management system such as Oracle. The challenge for NACC is to expand and adjust previously collected data elements into an integrated database that could be used for administrative as well as research purposes. In addition, NACC sought to allow the centers to have the flexibility they needed for data submission. To accomplish this task, NACC designed a database that contained separate specific datasets each with individual data elements. NACC also designed a data management system to easily collect and manage these data. The NACC web site (www.alz.washington.edu) was created to allow access to the data.