As most people probably know by now, Alzheimer's is a disease that involves the progressive degeneration of the memory, cognition, mind and personality. It is generally difficult to diagnose the disease in its early stages. However, a new study by researchers at the University of Cambridge suggests that a simple memory test could give results that are very accurate.
Alzheimer's disease presents a logical puzzle. One of the major symptoms commonly associated with it, dementia, is difficult to diagnose with certainty. This has implications because, if the dementia is diagnosed early enough, doctors can then start drug interventions or other appropriate treatments faster. On the other hand, if it is not accurately diagnosed early enough, the disease has often already caused too much brain damage for it to be managed well and meaningfully for the patient, according to ITV News.
Researchers at the University of Cambridge tried using a memory test - called the Four Mountains Test - to try to diagnose and identify the loss of memory and cognitive decline. The test involves showing the patient one image of a landscape. After that, the patient is asked to identify it amongst four other landscape images - one of which shows the same landscape from a new angle, which is the correct image. A nearly 93 percent success rate was reported for this test, much higher than the success rates for surgical and other memory tests. The sample group was comprised of 15 people. This test is also available as an app for Apple devices, according to the Daily Mail.
"The caveat is that we have only proven the principle and the real test is in the work being done now.... There is an urgent need for a way of screening the millions of middle-age people who went to their GPs with mild cognitive impairment," said Dennis Chan, who led the study and is a lecturer in clinical neuroscience at the University of Cambridge, according to the Australian.
This particular study will be published in a medical journal in the next few months. Dementia and Alzheimer's disease currently affects 850,000 people in the U.K. This number is expected to grow to one million by 2025 and two million by 2050.
