Older People With Early, Asymptomatic Alzheimer's at Risk of Falls

A study in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease suggests the process of neurodegeneration that leads to Alzheimer's dementia already may have started in older people with apparently normal cognition who suffer falls, reports Newswise . "If you lose strength and balance, the recommended treatment is to work on strength and balance," said Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis Professor Susan Stark. "But if someone is falling for another reason, maybe because his or her brain has begun accumulating Alzheimer's-related damage, that person might need a different treatment entirely." The researchers monitored 83 people older than 65 for a year, who were all assessed as cognitively normal at the outset. Although the presence of amyloid in the brain by itself did not elevate the risk of falling, neurodegeneration did. Participants who fell exhibited smaller hippocampi, while their somatomotor networks indicated greater deterioration. This supported the conclusion that falling is most likely to occur in the neurodegeneration phase of preclinical Alzheimer's, or the last five years or so before memory loss and confusion manifest.