What if there were a way to catch Alzheimer’s disease before it occurred? Is there a method to stopping this terminal and most common form of dementia? Researchers decided to see whether there might be a telling sign of Alzheimer’s development which is detectable before any permanent damage has already occured.
Modern medicine has not yet advanced to the point of completely reversing the damage caused by Alzheimer’s, although certain treatments do slow the progression of the disease. It has been said that Alzheimer’s affects women twice as often as men, however, cognitive decline in both sexes is usually similar.
When Erin K. Johns, a doctoral student in Concordia University’s Department of Psychology and an associate of the Center for Research in Human Development (CRDH), began her studies on adults suffering from MCI (mild cognitive impairment), she wanted to determine whether there was something more that could be done to recognize Alzheimer’s before it hits hard.
Adults who have MCI begin to display signs of memory impairment and problems functioning in normal day-to-day life – performing tasks, such as planning their schedules.
According to the experts, adults who show signs of cognitive impairment have an increased risk of developing Alzheimer’s.
Johns commented:
“We wanted to help provide more reliable tools to identify people who are at increased risk for developing Alzheimer’s so that they can be targeted for preventive strategies that would stop brain damage from progressing”
The new trial, which was published in the Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society and funded by the Quebec Network for Research on Aging and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, claims that Johns and her team discovered that those who have impaired ability to make decisions suffer from the inability to perform many other tasks, the largest being the ability to control their inhibitions.
Controlling inhibitions is critical to living a normal life; it can affect simple decisions such as resisting the urge to eat something unhealthy or keeping your mouth shut about something a friend told you. MCI patients also have difficulty with tests involving their ability to organize and plan simple situations.
All of the adults analyzed by Johns were found to have one or more impaired decision-making function. In addition, almost 50% of the adults being studied showed less-than-expected scores on executive function tests.
These results go against those of previous studies which have stated that only 15% of patients with MCI suffer from other cognitive impairments.
Johns continued:
“The problem is that patients and their families have difficulty reporting executive functioning problems to their physicians, because they may not have a good understanding of what these problems look like in their everyday life. That’s why neuropsychological testing is important.”
She concluded: “If we miss the deficits, we miss out on an opportunity to intervene with the patient and the family to help them know what to expect and how to cope.”
Previous studies have suggested that mild Alzheimer’s may actually be mild cognitive impairment; it is not uncommon for patients to be re-diagnosed as having MIC, not Alzheimer’s.
Written by Christine Kearney