Alzheimer is the bane of old age. Nobody wants their life to set in the zone of helplessness. A glorious youth followed by an old age maligned by Alzheimer’s is the most frightful dream.
According to a study carried out by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Alzheimer’s has surfaced as one of the most popular forms of dementia. The statistics portray a horrifying picture, revealing that almost 6 million people in the USA are inflicted with Alzheimer’s.
Alzheimer-A Cognitive Impairment
Alzheimer’s is characterized by mild memory loss. To its extreme, it could pose difficulty in carrying out normal day to day tasks. It can make its victim lose their consciousness of the world around them.
Alzheimer’s usually reveals itself after the age of 65, but it does not validate that anyone with even some minor cognitive disability is a victim of the cruel illness. Sometimes it could just be that- weak memory that may never progress into full-blown Alzheimer infliction.
The Fright of Alzheimer’s
As terrifying as Alzheimer’s sounds, it is no surprise that many people scurry to the doctors at the first sign of forgetfulness. However, until now, diagnosing Alzheimer’s at an early stage came at an expensive cost and invasive tests.
- A lumbar puncture extracts a sample of Cerebrospinal fluid from a patient to deduce the brains’ metabolism even before a patient starts exhibiting any of the severe symptoms of Alzheimer’s. This test can be very frightful for the patient.
- The second approach to diagnosing Alzheimer’s before the onset of symptoms is positron emission tomography imaging. This test, though, may not be as invasive as the first one, it can be costly and, thus, not available with many healthcare institutes.
The latest discovery
Scientists and experts at Lund University sought a way to discover a means of testing Alzheimer’s that is both cheap and acceptable for the public. They studied blood samples of 573 people for two specific proteins to deduce signs of Alzheimer’s.
The scientists observed the participants for four years to observe the progression of Alzheimer’s. Consequently, they discovered assessing protein enzymes in blood relayed more successful deductions than the earlier two tests.
Professors from Lund University insisted that more efforts and resources be employed in affirming their findings so they can be employed in the real field.