New Way of Defining Alzheimer's Aims to Find Disease Sooner

Scientists are proposing a new way to define Alzheimer's disease that is based on biological indicators instead of memory loss and other standard symptoms, reports Medical Xpress . Their goal is to improve research by using more objective criteria such as brain scans to choose study subjects and enroll them sooner in the course of their illness, when therapy may be more effective. The Mayo Clinic's Dr. Clifford R. Jack Jr. led an expert committee, working with the Alzheimer's Association and the National Institute on Aging, to update Alzheimer's guidelines recently published in Alzheimer's & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer's Association . The guidelines outline the use of amyloid and tau proteins over a spectrum of mental decline, starting with early brain changes, through mild impairment and dementia. Jack advises people who are concerned and want such tests for themselves or a family member to refrain from getting them, because "there's no proven treatment yet." Instead, he suggests anyone with symptoms or family history of dementia, or even healthy people worried about the risk, should enroll in one of the many studies underway. "We need more people in this pre-symptomatic stage" to determine if treatments can help ward off decline, says Dr. Eliezer Masliah at the Institute on Aging.