Scientists have discovered that it may be possible to identify signs of dementia already nine years before patients receive an official diagnosis.
The results raise the possibility that, in the future, people at risk can be screening for clinical experiments and new treatments.
Dr. Richard Oakley, associated director of research at theAlzheimer’s Societysaid that the results suggest that for some people who develop Alzheimer’s disease, memory and thought problems can start up to nine years before receiving a diagnosis.
The first author of the study, Nol Swaddiwudong, said:
When we looked back to the patient’s stories, it became clear that they were showing a certain cognitive deterioration several years before their symptoms became evident enough to require a diagnosis. The impairments were often thin, but concerned a series of aspects of cognition. This is a step forward towards our ability to select people at the highest risk – for example, people over 50 with more than 50 years or those who have high blood pressure or do not exercise enough – and intervene in a previous phase to help them reduce the risk.
The study
In the study, the researchers analyzed the data of the British Biobanca and found compromise in different areas, several years before patients received an official diagnosis.
There are currently very few effective treatments for dementia. Experts say that this is partly due to the fact that the condition is often diagnosed only when symptoms appear, while the basic problem could start years or even decades earlier.
This means that when patients take part in clinical studies, it can already be too late to alter their course.
In addition to gathering information on health and diagnosis of diseases, researchers collected data from a series of tests, including problems resolution, memory, reaction times and grip force, as well as data on the loss and on the increase in weight and the number of falls suffered.
This made it possible to see if the basal signs were present, when the measurements were collected for the first time between five and nine years before the diagnosis.
People who developed Alzheimer got scarcest scores than healthy individuals when they were tasks of resolving problems, reaction and memory times.
The author Senior, Dr. Timothy Rittman, of the Department of Clinical Neuroscience of Cambridge, said:
People should not be worried if, for example, they do not remember the numbers, because it can also happen in healthy individuals. With our study we would like to encourage anyone who has doubts or notes that their memory is worsening to speak with their family doctor.
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Source: Alzheimer’s Association
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