- Alzheimer’s disease (AD), the most common form of dementia, accounts for 60-70% of dementia cases.
- Diagnosis currently involves many lengthy tests, meaning that treatment may be delayed.
- A new post-mortem study has found significant changes in the retinas of people who had mild cognitive impairment or AD before death.
- These findings may lead to a non-invasive diagnosis of AD by retinal screening.
According to the World Health Organization, more than 55 million people worldwide have dementia, and some 10 million people are diagnosed with the disorder each year. In the United States alone, about 5.8 million people are living with dementia, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) predicts that the number will rise to 14 million by 2060.
If a person starts to show signs of cognitive impairment, it is important to seek an early diagnosis. Prompt diagnosis of dementia will allow the individual and their carers time to plan for the future, and to access treatments that, although they cannot cure the disease, can slow or delay symptoms, and that can help manage symptoms.
Currently, dementia diagnosis relies on a number of evaluations, including cognitive tests, brain scans, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) tests, blood tests, psychiatric evaluations, and genetic tests. These can take a long time and be costly, so much recent research has focused on finding faster, less-invasive methods of diagnosing dementia.
Biomarkers are showing promise as a diagnostic tool. Although these are minimally invasive, most involve taking blood or CSF. Newer research has shown that retinal screening may detect signs of AD, making this a potential method for diagnosis.
Now, a post-mortem study has found that people with cognitive impairment or AD have many retinal changes that are not seen in the retinas of cognitively healthy people.
The study, led by researchers from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, is published in Acta Neuropathologica.
“For several years, scientists have been…