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A study published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease reveals that a simple cell phone test could detect the disease at a very early stage, long before symptoms are visible.
Alzheimer’s disease is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by disorders of recent memory, executive functions and orientation in time and space. It is a disabling pathology because the patient gradually loses his cognitive faculties and his autonomy. There is no treatment that cures the disease. Appropriate management can slow its progression and improve the lives of patients and those around them. The earlier the disease is detected, the more effective the treatment will be.
The test: perform three simple tasks via an interactive voice response system
Good news, a recent study could help detect the disease early. American researchers from Mass General Brigham have developed a test to be done on a telephone, which would help to detect the early signs of Alzheimer’s in patients who do not (yet) present with the characteristic cognitive disorders of the disease. They tested it on old people.
This test consists of the execution of three tasks that an elderly person can do on a smartphone: renew a prescription, call a health insurance company and carry out a banking transaction. To complete the tasks, participants had to navigate through an interactive voice response system.
People without cognitive disorders and yet sick
According to the study results, nearly a third of clinically normal participants (without cognitive impairment) had amyloid plaques and elevated tau protein levels in their brains (early signs of the disease), and had difficulty performing the most difficult tasks of the test. “Although these results are preliminary, they show that there is an association between an objective assessment of instrumental activities of daily living and the interaction of tau and amyloid in a sample of cognitively normal older adults.”, said Chris Gonzalez, co-author of the study.
This discovery is promising in the sense that this test could identify people with Alzheimer’s disease before symptoms appear. This would help in making a very early diagnosis.