Now they can save time and send patients directly to the Disintegration Chamber.
Posted on 05/26/2021 12:45:01 PM PDT by Red Badger
Scientists in Sweden have developed a simple and reliable tool for diagnosing Alzheimer's disease in its earliest stages. The prototype analyzes the results of a single blood test and three cognitive exams, which take only ten minutes to complete.
With just that information, the new algorithm was able to predict with 90 percent certainty which patients with mild cognitive impairment would go on to develop Alzheimer's within four years.
Compared to current diagnostic methods, that's a big improvement. In early tests of the prototype, dementia experts - who use a person's medical history and brain scans to make their diagnosis - performed significantly worse than this new tool.
When examining 340 patients in Sweden and 543 patients in North America with mild memory issues, experts were right about who would develop the disease 72 percent of the time.
On the other hand, the new algorithm was 83 percent accurate at predicting Alzheimer's onset using only the blood test results.
These blood plasma samples were used to look for a known Alzheimer's risk gene as well as evidence of tau protein tangles in those already suffering from mild memory problems.
Recent studies suggest tau proteins are present in the brain from the earliest stages of Alzheimer's, and last year, scientists found plasma P-tau217 - a product of tau proteins in the blood - was a good predictor of cognitive decline in people with mild cognitive impairment.
In the past, P-tau217 in the cerebrospinal fluid has been found to predict cognitive decline specific to Alzheimer's, but spinal fluid tests are much more invasive and expensive than a simple blood test.
Previous prototype blood tests have also been developed, but none have yet made it into the clinic. These blood tests were based on another hallmark of the disease similar to tau proteins, called amyloid-beta plaques.
This type of brain plaque, however, doesn't seem to be quite as ubiquitous among Alzheimer's patients as tau proteins are. In fact, up to a third of patients with clinical diagnoses of Alzheimer's are missing these plaques postmortem, while some people without any memory issues show the biomarkers after death.
This had led researchers to suggest amyloid-beta plaques are latecomers of the disease; in turn, this indicates that tau-related biomarkers could catch the disease sooner.
"The algorithm will enable us to recruit people with Alzheimer's at an early stage, which is when new drugs have a better chance of slowing the course of the disease," says neuroscientist Oskar Hansson from Lund University in Sweden.
The researchers hope that their test - after additional improvements and tweaking - will one day make a major difference in the diagnosis of Alzheimer's, especially in places that can't afford expensive brain imaging technology or cerebrospinal fluid tests.
"The algorithm has currently only been tested on patients who have been examined in memory clinics. Our hope is that it will also be validated for use in primary healthcare as well as in developing countries with limited resources," says lead author of the study Sebastian Palmqvist, also from Lund University.
The study was published in Nature Medicine.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01348-z
Do they remember where they put it? 😂🙌.
(And yes I do know how devastating it is.)
Anyone involved should be arrested for violating the rights of American citizens.
Sounds encouraging.
I’m sure Life Insurance companies will want to use it.................
I don’t see that this will increase human happiness without also having a proactive treatment to prevent the disease. Just the opposite.
Being a vegetative moldy potato in the White House: Risk 100%
First sign is clicking on the Diagnostic Test Now link.
They give you a speech to read to see if you can, uh, you know, the thing.
I think diet and medications have a lot to do with Alzheimers.
Now they can save time and send patients directly to the Disintegration Chamber.
Biden should be forced to take this test.
Unless things have changed re Alzheimers diagnosis the only surefire way to know if a person has the disease is an autopsy and examination of the brain tissue for calcification.
> Anyone involved should be arrested for violating the rights of American citizens.
Huhnh? Sounds like a simple blood test and would be treated under the law like any other blood test.
There are other diagnostics, like, if you act like Biden, you got it.
“I don’t see that this will increase human happiness without also having a proactive treatment to prevent the disease. Just the opposite.”
You are 100% correct. My wife was diagnosed in 2016 with Alzheimers after she was tested at a well known memory center.
She was 74 at the time and we all explained away her forgetfulness to old age and it having differing effects on different people. She was never told she was diagnosed with the disease because at the time it was and remains incurable. We did tell her she had the common old persons malady of dementia which (we said) eventually happens to everyone.
That scene makes me laugh. It looks so weird and screwball.
I can only imagine the dialouge.
Until they have a treatment or cure I wouldn’t want to know.....no pun intended.....
I’m not even sure that I would want to take that test.
Genetics is a factor in the outcome, but not always the deciding factor. Ask any child of a second generation alcoholic or drug addict.
That child probably ‘has the gene’ too, but they don’t just have to end up like Daddy and Grandad did. Some will make a point of controlling their behavior to make that outcome less likely.
It’s very hard. I’d suspect that most people would rather not take the test and rather not know. Sometimes these things are a self-fulfilling prophecy, because then people lose hope, think of themselves as goners, and don’t even try to get on with their lives.
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