Early Alzheimer’s Detection is Key

Comparison of healthy vs. alzheimers brain

Doctors and researchers currently working to cure or at least slow the progression of  Alzheimer’s may have just received a bit of a break from researchers in the U.K. As with most debilitating diseases, early detection is often the key to improving the patients odds of survival, or in the case of Alzheimer’s, prolonging their quality of life.

In the U.K., where more than 800,000 people currently suffer from Alzheimer’s, researchers have announced that they may have found a way to detect the tell-tale signs of the disease several years before the patient would show any symptoms. The test involves a spinal tap and a brain scan. The researchers focus on actual shrinkage of the brain as well as levels of amyloid, a protein, in the spinal fluid.

Until now doctors have been hampered in evaluating the drugs used to treat the condition as patients were not treated until the disease had progressed into a symptomatic state. If the new test prove accurate, it will give doctors a much better read on how specific medications are working for patients.