14 DAY TRIAL // Scientists were recently able to determine in a new study that people suffering from the neurodegenerative condition Alzheimer's Diseases were likely to experience very fast cognitive decline. While this has been known for some time, the new study shows that these rates are about four times higher in dementia patients than in their healthy peers, who suffer from no condition in this spectrum. The investigation that arrived at this conclusion was conducted by researchers at the Chicago, Illinois-based Rush University Medical Center, PhysOrg reports.
“Knowledge about the progressive cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s disease is mainly based on studies of persons evaluated in clinical settings. In such studies, the full spectrum of the disease is unlikely to be represented. As a result, it has been difficult to securely determine the cognitive consequences of the disease and to test whether they vary in racial or ethnic subgroups of the population,” says Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center neuropsychology expert Robert S. Wilson.
He is also the author of a new study detailing these findings. The paper appears in the March 23 issue of the esteemed scientific journal Neurology, a medical publication of the American Academy of Neurology. The team leader says that this is only the second population-based study on the cognitive decline rates of dementia ever to be conducted in the world. As such, it is likely to become a point of reference in Alzheimer's research, analysts say. The work was conducted on 1,168 senior adults, who had all participated in the longitudinal cohort study Chicago Health and Aging Project.
“This study is especially significant because half of the participants are African Americans. Most of what we know about Alzheimer’s disease is based on studies of Caucasians. Our study found no difference in how the disease played out in the two races. Part of understanding this disease is carefully quantifying what the consequences are in a defined population. Such knowledge is especially important now with the prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease expected to sharply increase by the middle of the 21st century,” Wilson explains.