14 DAY TRIAL // A team of researchers from the Mayo Clinic say that they recently developed a new approach for teasing out people who suffer from the early stages of Alzheimer's diseases. Discovering the condition in advanced can help improve patient outcomes and reduce the burden placed on healthcare systems.
Scientists believe that the key to successfully fighting Alzheimer's is not to wait until it sets in, and later-stage symptoms become apparent, but rather to look for them in advance. On the other hand, having people take MRI scans once per year is not economically feasible.
Alzheimer's is a neurodegenerative form of dementia that leads to forms of cognitive decline such as speech impairment, memory loss, neural degeneration, and eventually death through associated conditions. It currently affects around 8 percent of all seniors.
However, as the population of the developed world ages, the overall number of cases is bound to increase several times over. Researchers are preparing for this by developing new and advanced early detection methods, based on the latests advancements in science and technology.
With the new paper, Mayo Clinic investigators essentially give their colleagues a new tool with which to look for early symptoms. Their approach involves creating a set of standard definitions of what constitutes Alzheimer's, as well as including new categories in existing tests.
By doing the latter, scientists say that they can basically make prognostics and diagnostics clearer for healthcare experts. At this point, there is a high degree of uncertainty among professions when they are placing early diagnostics, PsychCentral reports.
The guidelines were developed by a group of experts from the National Institute on Aging – part of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) – and the Alzheimer’s Association (NIA-AA). The new study is published in the latest issue of the medical journal Annals of Neurology.
“The important guidelines developed by the NIA-AA work group were a vital step in clarifying the progression of this devastating disease and aiding in earlier diagnosis. Our study builds on that work by recommending two additional sub-groups that merit attention,” Clifford R. Jack, Jr., MD, explains.
The expert, a neurologist at the Mayo Clinic, was the author of the study, and the leader of the team that analyzed the guidelines proposed by the NIA-AA work group.
“Without the additional categories we recommend, more than half of all preclinical AD patients would be ‘forced’ into a category that was not descriptive of their current state,” study co-author and Mayo Clinic expert Ronald C. Petersen, MD, PhD, adds.
“By more clearly defining the stages of preclinical Alzheimer’s disease and categories of elderly subjects who should not be classified as preclinical AD, we can improve its diagnosis and help in the management of this devastating disease,” he concludes.