Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Alzheimer's Test

New test can detect early Alzheimer's: study
By Julie Steenhuysen Julie Steenhuysen – Mon Mar 16, 1:53 pm ET

This article was on Yahoo on Monday, March 16, 2008.

This test measures the amount of the tau protein and the concentration of the amyloid beta42 polypeptide. Leslie Shaw of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, whose study appears in the Annals of Neurology.

He said these two measures accurately predicted which patients with memory problems would develop Alzheimer's disease in 87 percent of the cases. The test also ruled out the disease in 95.2 percent of the volunteers.


That's pretty good news.

3 comments:

Lori1955 said...

Interesting article. Since AD patients show no signs of the disease in stage 1, then we really don't know how long they have been in that stage. It could be years. If this test is accurate, just think about how long they could hold off the devastating effects of AD. Of course the big question is how many doctors would have this test ordered for a patient and would insurance companies pay for it.

rilera said...

Not only what Lori said but also if a person was found to have AD via this test, would insurance then drop them?

nancy said...

very interesting. personally i had mixed feelings reading it. would i want to know? would i want to know what is in store for me. great food for thought. great questions raised as well. thanks.