Brain Scans Spot, Track Alzheimer's

A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association says brain scans can improve diagnosis and management of Alzheimer's disease, reports WebMD . The researchers assessed the use of positron-emission tomography (PET) scans to identify Alzheimer's-related amyloid plaques in the brain in more than 11,000 Medicare beneficiaries with mild thinking impairment or dementia of uncertain cause. The scans changed the diagnosis of the cause of mental impairment in more than one-third of the participants. In addition, the brain scan results changed management, including the use of medications and counseling, in almost two-thirds of cases. "These results present highly credible, large-scale evidence that amyloid PET imaging can be a powerful tool to improve the accuracy of Alzheimer's diagnosis and lead to better medical management, especially in difficult-to-diagnose cases," noted the Alzheimer's Association's Maria Carrillo.