5 ms·

For a disease which (to my knowledge) can’t be slowed down or reversed, I think it’s a fair question why we would want to detect Alzheimer’s. Maybe there are ot

For a disease which (to my knowledge) can’t be slowed down or reversed, I think it’s a fair question why we would want to detect Alzheimer’s. Maybe there are other reasons, but my suspicion is that we will be able to, and an easy detection method significantly widens the pool of subjects to study later on. If it turns out that driving a Prius on Tuesdays slows down Alzheimer’s, a larger pool of subjects would allow us to figure that out.

viking123 8mo ago
Well, the AI CEOs are telling we will have AGI in ~5 years, so with millions of agents with AGI this thing should be sorted soon ;)
tptacek 8mo ago
The accuracy of this test is nowhere nearly good enough to do population-wide screening. The clinical setting for this test is memory clinics in which Alzheimers is already relatively highly likely differentially, and even there you're going to get a surprising number of false positives. (There's enough info in the supplemental link on this page to have an LLM do the Bayes math for you.)
- probably_wrong 8mo ago
  Off-topic: I only came to this thread because I thought "I bet some comment will manage to somehow include LLMs in the discussion". Looks like my prior was not too bad :)
melling 8mo ago
This again? The test is optional. Feel free to skip it. Tell 50 million people they’re likely to have Alzheimer’s then tell them where to donate towards a cure, or treatments to slow it by a decade.
- tptacek 8mo ago
  Nobody is ever going to do that with this test, because the overwhelming majority of positive test results in a population-wide sample will be false, and the proposed diagnosis is devastating. This is a test for people who already have symptomatic dementia that helps confirm the diagnosis.
  - Dylan16807 8mo ago
    Well this test isn't for whether you will get Alzheimer's, so that disqualifies it before we even consider the accuracy. But apparently your odds go above 30% if you live long enough, so if you could test for being in that cohort I think that result would be too common to actually be devastating.
- jcranmer 8mo ago
  > Tell 50 million people they’re likely to have Alzheimer’s then tell them where to donate towards a cure, or treatments to slow it by a decade. Pharmaceutical companies have spent something like $50 billion on developing Alzheimer's drugs with, well, the most furtive of straw-grasping to show for it. It's probably the most expensive single disease target (especially as things like cancer are families of diseases)... the failure to have good results isn't for lack of money, and merely throwing more money at it is unlikely to actually make progress towards meaningful treatments.
  - hattmall 8mo ago
    It just seems really obvious to me that it's not one disease. One problem with the research is that there is SO much money. It's corrupting. There's a whole thing about the plaque cartel and if you aren't testing around a possibly flawed concept the availability of funds is much lower. I just feel the thinking is off, it's like we are trying to treat cuts by removing scabs and scar tissue. We really need deep investigation on the sources, which I feel in many cases are industrial chemicals and how some people's body / immune system respond to them. One of the most compelling studies I saw was how distance from a Golf Course predicted neurodegenerative diseases, based on their use of certain pesticides.
  - melling 8mo ago
    So, you’re saying it’s an unsolvable problem? Someone always says “merely throwing money at the problem…” What time period was the money spent? The last 25 years? The United States spends $1 trillion a year in debt interest. $50 billion is nothing
- criddell 8mo ago
  I wonder if after services like 23andMe became popular and millions of people found out they have the Alzheimer genes, did donations towards brain research rise?
zdc1 8mo ago
I would personally want to know as early as possible, so I could get my affairs in order and register my wishes around end of life care and euthanasia while I am still recognised as having full mental capacity. It's also better for people around the Alzheimer's patient, as it will let them understand why someone's personality and behaviours may be changing, and possibly let them be bit more forgiving of such changes. It will also give family more time to plan and understand the health and community services and support are offered wherever they live.
- organsnyder 8mo ago
  > I would personally want to know as early as possible, so I could get my affairs in order and register my wishes around end of life care and euthanasia while I am still recognised as having full mental capacity. Everyone should assume that they could lose their full mental capacity at any moment. Strokes, brain injuries, etc. can occur at any age with no warning. My wife and I finally went through the entire estate planning process several years ago. It was comforting to know that we had a plan for a myriad of scenarios (including the incredibly depressing decision of where our assets would go if our entire family—us and our kids—was gone at the same time).
voidhorse 8mo ago
There are more personal practical reasons too. Even though it cannot be reversed or eradicated (yet, let's hope) detection can allow individuals to adopt interventions that help either adjust their lives to better cope with its progression or help mitigate some of the detrimental behavioral consequences. In addition, if you have family to care for it may be impetus to get certain things in order for them before later stages of the disease, etc. It's horrible and bleak, but I could certainly see why one might want to know. In the lucky case, it can also relieve anxiety. Even though false negatives may still be possible, receiving a negative detection might give people who have anxiety about certain symptoms relief, since they can rule out (rightly or wrongly) a pretty severe disease.
treetalker 8mo ago
If the patient still has periods of lucidity but the disease is suspected to be advancing, knowing they have it could prompt them to get their legal affairs in order.
bgirard 8mo ago
It's very useful to understand what you're struggling from even if it's not curable. It explains your symptoms, your experience and help you understand what you're going through. Understanding that you're suffering from something incurable is also helpful in not looking for other ineffective methods to cure a mysterious illness.
ronbenton 8mo ago
Having struggled with hard to diagnose health issues before, I can’t emphasize enough how much of a relief it is to put a name on the disease that is causing you so much harm. It is frankly shocking to think disease diagnosis would be a useless thing
Baeocystin 8mo ago
I know two people who have been taking the new monoclonal antibody treatment for it. One who was a bit further along when she started, and did not show any significant improvement. The one who started while she was still in the early stages has completely arrested her descent. She hasn't recovered much of what she already lost, but she's still able to live independently and enjoy life, and her mental acuity scores are (slightly) better than they were last year. That's a hell of a thing.
- maybelsyrup 8mo ago
  Wait what treatment is this?
  - aix1 8mo ago
    Probably either lecanemab (older) or donanemab (newer).
    - Baeocystin 8mo ago
      In my friend's case, donanemab, FWIW.
- ulfw 8mo ago
  How do you know it's completely arrested? Best these type of drugs can do is give you a few months extra window (say 4-6 months). They're not a cure. Sadly.
  - rowanG077 8mo ago
    They tell you this: > her mental acuity scores are (slightly) better than they were last year
  - Baeocystin 8mo ago
    Completely arrested? I don't. But it appears to be arrested in ways that matter for mental acuity, for now. I've taken care of a parent with Alzheimer's, and helped several other caregivers over the years with their own family's journeys, and one thing I can tell you is that I have never, ever seen an actual halting of the progression for this long. The descent is usually a stairstep pattern, but the steps are on the matter of weeks to a month or two. My friend has been stable for a year. This is all new. There is research hinting at Alzheimer's subtypes, some of which are more likely to respond than others. Even halting the decline is a huge potential breakthrough.
toomuchtodo 8mo ago
If a loved one is suffering from this, this diagnostic would allow for interventions such as guardianship to assume financial and logistical responsibility for them with less subjective decisioning based on observations alone.
hn1986 8mo ago
there are treatments that can help slow progression, especially if it's found early.
- criddell 8mo ago
  What are they? I've read about basic lifestyle suggestions (diet and exercise), but I consider that the baseline. What can be done beyond that?
  - hn1986 8mo ago
    Lots of good info here: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11771116/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11771116/ Look up some of the more recent treatments - many of which will get better with time. That's why detecting Alzheimer's early is a big deal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lecanemab https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lecanemab
staticassertion 8mo ago
I assume this is hugely beneficial for research on intervention methods, not for treatment. I think everyone is focusing on "I'd rather know" but imagine if you could get larger populations with a diagnosis earlier on, how impactful that would be for testing an intervention?
irjustin 8mo ago
> why we would want to detect Alzheimer’s At a personal level, I've been through this with my grandfather. I want to know. My family wants to know. I want to prepare because there are things I want to do today that I know I won't be able to do in the future. In many ways, it's just like many terminal cancer diagnoses. You're going to lose that person, but you have some time.
- hattmall 8mo ago
  But it is a wildly variated, almost meaningless diagnosis. 3 of my 4 grandparents got Alzheimer's diagnosis as well as my mom and mother-in-law. The variation of progression and symptoms is so wide that it really seems like a catch-all. One grandmother was fine until about 72 and in 2 years forgot who people were and 4 years had lost all executive function and passed away. The other one was diagnosed in her early 80s and lived to be 96 with no major progression, like slightly more repeating, but never forgetting people or not knowing how to talk etc. Similar dichotomy between my mother and mother-in-law but with considerably different presentations of symptoms. It's a weird disease and IMO not even really a disease it's a bunch of different causes of cognitive impairment under one umbrella but shouldn't be separated out much further to find actual causes and treatments.
protocolture 8mo ago
Most people get a dementia (or related) diagnosis after they are deep enough in it so that they cant do much about it or get their affairs in order. My grandfather had a "fall" at work, he then left that job, and held down 2 more engineering jobs before he was diagnosed with a stroking condition and subsequent dementia. I got the distinct impression he thought he had more time, but rapidly declined. If he knew he was short of time before his rapid decline he probably would have done things differently. Like not buying a house he would later have to sell to pay for aged care. If he knew he was at risk of a workplace accident he probably wouldn't have worked as an after hours safety engineer at a major treatment plant, where if the worst had happened he could have endangered others.
OneMorePerson 8mo ago
Being able to know someone's risk factor would be important for how we treat elderly people. I know someone who is 85 and super sharp (previously worked as a corporate accountant and banker), they still have a better memory than a lot of 40-50 year olds, and yet they are constantly harassed by eldercare "agents" for the state because whenever they make a investment decision that is even slightly questionable they get reported to the state by the bank. Sometimes the bank refuses to authorize transactions. If they could conclusively prove they aren't at risk I think they would be left alone much more often.
gilgoomesh 8mo ago
For 20-ish% of Alzheimer's patients, the Shingles vaccine may be a treatment. This has been suspected for a few years now but has received recent confirmation studies. https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/news/2025-11-18/promising-research-shingles-vaccine-treatment-alzheimers-disease https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/news/2025-11-18/promising-rese...
- adrian_b 8mo ago
  While the study was about the shingles vaccine, I wonder if having passed normally through shingles influences positively or negatively the chances of later developing Alzheimer's.
Aurornis 8mo ago
> For a disease which (to my knowledge) can’t be slowed down or reversed, I think it’s a fair question why we would want to detect Alzheimer’s. Getting an accurate diagnosis is always important. Cognitive decline could be caused by other problems, some of which are more treatable than others. If this test came back negative it would suggest extra testing to rule out other conditions like a brain tumor or hydrocephalus.
redox99 8mo ago
> For a disease which (to my knowledge) can’t be slowed down or reversed There's Lecanemab and Donanemab. The effects are modest however.
- ChadNauseam 8mo ago
  Trontinemab is in trials right now and has 92% of patients achieving low amyloid levels. And more people should be able to take it as it causes less brain swelling (ARIA-E). I'm unaffiliated, I just follow medical research in my free time. But I'm quite hopeful about this medication
peter_retief 8mo ago
This disease is in my family, honestly not sure I would want to know if I will get it.
shevy-java 8mo ago
I understand the "detect deadly progression but no cure" problem; this was the same rationale people used when Huntington disease could be verified in diagnostics. Many people don't want to know, but some want to know, in particular as you can manage some things here or there - diet affects many things, for instance, even aside from metaboic genetic defects. And for any (molecular) therapy at a later time you need to understand the molecular basis to some extent. Some things can be found out via trial and error (vaccination and before) but for some disease that can not work. Alzheimer is quite complex.
eshack94 8mo ago
Not saying anything about the article at-hand, but assuming we were able to detect it with such certainty, I think it would greatly increase the funding, rigor, and breadth or research devoted to finding a cure or treatment that actually worked.
raincole 8mo ago
> doctors correctly diagnosed Alzheimer's in 75.5% of cases, but when incorporating blood test results, diagnostic accuracy increased to 94.5% These patients are already seeing doctors. Would you rather your doctor to hide the diagnosis just because your disease isn't curable (for now)? It's not like we're testing the whole population in masse.
KurSix 8mo ago
Even without a cure, there's still a lot of practical value in knowing earlier
snowhale 8mo ago
[dead]
scott_w 8mo ago
> For a disease which (to my knowledge) can’t be slowed down or reversed, I think it’s a fair question why we would want to detect Alzheimer’s. Maybe there are other reasons, but my suspicion is that we will be able to, and an easy detection method significantly widens the pool of subjects to study later on. Your point at the end is essentially correct. There's a couple of reasons that come to my mind: Early detection lets us test cures more quickly. You can see if the treatment is working without waiting 30 years for symptoms to develop or not. If prevention is all that works, we can verify lifestyle changes, again without having to wait 30 years for symptoms to develop. Early detection means there's more of a chance of any future treatment succeeding and the patient returning to a normal life. Think of early detection of cancer or heart disease meaning you can be treated with less risky medication and procedures and minimise the damage being done.
hankman86 8mo ago
To rule out Alzheimers when you wonder whether your recent episodes of forgetfulness have an underlying medical cause. That aside, some moderately effective drugs have recently been approved that can slow down the disease in its early stages. And even if you are no candidate for these: you can start organising the life around you while you still can. Like moving to an assisted living facility.

viking123 8mo ago

Well, the AI CEOs are telling we will have AGI in ~5 years, so with millions of agents with AGI this thing should be sorted soon ;)

tptacek 8mo ago

The accuracy of this test is nowhere nearly good enough to do population-wide screening. The clinical setting for this test is memory clinics in which Alzheimers is already relatively highly likely differentially, and even there you're going to get a surprising number of false positives. (There's enough info in the supplemental link on this page to have an LLM do the Bayes math for you.)

probably_wrong 8mo ago
Off-topic: I only came to this thread because I thought "I bet some comment will manage to somehow include LLMs in the discussion". Looks like my prior was not too bad :)

melling 8mo ago

This again? The test is optional. Feel free to skip it. Tell 50 million people they’re likely to have Alzheimer’s then tell them where to donate towards a cure, or treatments to slow it by a decade.

tptacek 8mo ago
Nobody is ever going to do that with this test, because the overwhelming majority of positive test results in a population-wide sample will be false, and the proposed diagnosis is devastating. This is a test for people who already have symptomatic dementia that helps confirm the diagnosis.
- Dylan16807 8mo ago
  Well this test isn't for whether you will get Alzheimer's, so that disqualifies it before we even consider the accuracy. But apparently your odds go above 30% if you live long enough, so if you could test for being in that cohort I think that result would be too common to actually be devastating.
jcranmer 8mo ago
> Tell 50 million people they’re likely to have Alzheimer’s then tell them where to donate towards a cure, or treatments to slow it by a decade. Pharmaceutical companies have spent something like $50 billion on developing Alzheimer's drugs with, well, the most furtive of straw-grasping to show for it. It's probably the most expensive single disease target (especially as things like cancer are families of diseases)... the failure to have good results isn't for lack of money, and merely throwing more money at it is unlikely to actually make progress towards meaningful treatments.
- hattmall 8mo ago
  It just seems really obvious to me that it's not one disease. One problem with the research is that there is SO much money. It's corrupting. There's a whole thing about the plaque cartel and if you aren't testing around a possibly flawed concept the availability of funds is much lower. I just feel the thinking is off, it's like we are trying to treat cuts by removing scabs and scar tissue. We really need deep investigation on the sources, which I feel in many cases are industrial chemicals and how some people's body / immune system respond to them. One of the most compelling studies I saw was how distance from a Golf Course predicted neurodegenerative diseases, based on their use of certain pesticides.
- melling 8mo ago
  So, you’re saying it’s an unsolvable problem? Someone always says “merely throwing money at the problem…” What time period was the money spent? The last 25 years? The United States spends $1 trillion a year in debt interest. $50 billion is nothing
criddell 8mo ago
I wonder if after services like 23andMe became popular and millions of people found out they have the Alzheimer genes, did donations towards brain research rise?

zdc1 8mo ago

I would personally want to know as early as possible, so I could get my affairs in order and register my wishes around end of life care and euthanasia while I am still recognised as having full mental capacity. It's also better for people around the Alzheimer's patient, as it will let them understand why someone's personality and behaviours may be changing, and possibly let them be bit more forgiving of such changes. It will also give family more time to plan and understand the health and community services and support are offered wherever they live.

organsnyder 8mo ago
> I would personally want to know as early as possible, so I could get my affairs in order and register my wishes around end of life care and euthanasia while I am still recognised as having full mental capacity. Everyone should assume that they could lose their full mental capacity at any moment. Strokes, brain injuries, etc. can occur at any age with no warning. My wife and I finally went through the entire estate planning process several years ago. It was comforting to know that we had a plan for a myriad of scenarios (including the incredibly depressing decision of where our assets would go if our entire family—us and our kids—was gone at the same time).

voidhorse 8mo ago

There are more personal practical reasons too. Even though it cannot be reversed or eradicated (yet, let's hope) detection can allow individuals to adopt interventions that help either adjust their lives to better cope with its progression or help mitigate some of the detrimental behavioral consequences. In addition, if you have family to care for it may be impetus to get certain things in order for them before later stages of the disease, etc. It's horrible and bleak, but I could certainly see why one might want to know. In the lucky case, it can also relieve anxiety. Even though false negatives may still be possible, receiving a negative detection might give people who have anxiety about certain symptoms relief, since they can rule out (rightly or wrongly) a pretty severe disease.

treetalker 8mo ago

If the patient still has periods of lucidity but the disease is suspected to be advancing, knowing they have it could prompt them to get their legal affairs in order.

bgirard 8mo ago

It's very useful to understand what you're struggling from even if it's not curable. It explains your symptoms, your experience and help you understand what you're going through. Understanding that you're suffering from something incurable is also helpful in not looking for other ineffective methods to cure a mysterious illness.

ronbenton 8mo ago

Having struggled with hard to diagnose health issues before, I can’t emphasize enough how much of a relief it is to put a name on the disease that is causing you so much harm. It is frankly shocking to think disease diagnosis would be a useless thing

Baeocystin 8mo ago

I know two people who have been taking the new monoclonal antibody treatment for it. One who was a bit further along when she started, and did not show any significant improvement. The one who started while she was still in the early stages has completely arrested her descent. She hasn't recovered much of what she already lost, but she's still able to live independently and enjoy life, and her mental acuity scores are (slightly) better than they were last year. That's a hell of a thing.

maybelsyrup 8mo ago
Wait what treatment is this?
- aix1 8mo ago
  Probably either lecanemab (older) or donanemab (newer).
  - Baeocystin 8mo ago
    In my friend's case, donanemab, FWIW.
ulfw 8mo ago
How do you know it's completely arrested? Best these type of drugs can do is give you a few months extra window (say 4-6 months). They're not a cure. Sadly.
- rowanG077 8mo ago
  They tell you this: > her mental acuity scores are (slightly) better than they were last year
- Baeocystin 8mo ago
  Completely arrested? I don't. But it appears to be arrested in ways that matter for mental acuity, for now. I've taken care of a parent with Alzheimer's, and helped several other caregivers over the years with their own family's journeys, and one thing I can tell you is that I have never, ever seen an actual halting of the progression for this long. The descent is usually a stairstep pattern, but the steps are on the matter of weeks to a month or two. My friend has been stable for a year. This is all new. There is research hinting at Alzheimer's subtypes, some of which are more likely to respond than others. Even halting the decline is a huge potential breakthrough.

toomuchtodo 8mo ago

If a loved one is suffering from this, this diagnostic would allow for interventions such as guardianship to assume financial and logistical responsibility for them with less subjective decisioning based on observations alone.

hn1986 8mo ago

there are treatments that can help slow progression, especially if it's found early.

criddell 8mo ago
What are they? I've read about basic lifestyle suggestions (diet and exercise), but I consider that the baseline. What can be done beyond that?
- hn1986 8mo ago
  Lots of good info here: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11771116/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11771116/ Look up some of the more recent treatments - many of which will get better with time. That's why detecting Alzheimer's early is a big deal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lecanemab https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lecanemab

staticassertion 8mo ago

I assume this is hugely beneficial for research on intervention methods, not for treatment. I think everyone is focusing on "I'd rather know" but imagine if you could get larger populations with a diagnosis earlier on, how impactful that would be for testing an intervention?

irjustin 8mo ago

> why we would want to detect Alzheimer’s At a personal level, I've been through this with my grandfather. I want to know. My family wants to know. I want to prepare because there are things I want to do today that I know I won't be able to do in the future. In many ways, it's just like many terminal cancer diagnoses. You're going to lose that person, but you have some time.

hattmall 8mo ago
But it is a wildly variated, almost meaningless diagnosis. 3 of my 4 grandparents got Alzheimer's diagnosis as well as my mom and mother-in-law. The variation of progression and symptoms is so wide that it really seems like a catch-all. One grandmother was fine until about 72 and in 2 years forgot who people were and 4 years had lost all executive function and passed away. The other one was diagnosed in her early 80s and lived to be 96 with no major progression, like slightly more repeating, but never forgetting people or not knowing how to talk etc. Similar dichotomy between my mother and mother-in-law but with considerably different presentations of symptoms. It's a weird disease and IMO not even really a disease it's a bunch of different causes of cognitive impairment under one umbrella but shouldn't be separated out much further to find actual causes and treatments.

protocolture 8mo ago

Most people get a dementia (or related) diagnosis after they are deep enough in it so that they cant do much about it or get their affairs in order. My grandfather had a "fall" at work, he then left that job, and held down 2 more engineering jobs before he was diagnosed with a stroking condition and subsequent dementia. I got the distinct impression he thought he had more time, but rapidly declined. If he knew he was short of time before his rapid decline he probably would have done things differently. Like not buying a house he would later have to sell to pay for aged care. If he knew he was at risk of a workplace accident he probably wouldn't have worked as an after hours safety engineer at a major treatment plant, where if the worst had happened he could have endangered others.

OneMorePerson 8mo ago

Being able to know someone's risk factor would be important for how we treat elderly people. I know someone who is 85 and super sharp (previously worked as a corporate accountant and banker), they still have a better memory than a lot of 40-50 year olds, and yet they are constantly harassed by eldercare "agents" for the state because whenever they make a investment decision that is even slightly questionable they get reported to the state by the bank. Sometimes the bank refuses to authorize transactions. If they could conclusively prove they aren't at risk I think they would be left alone much more often.

gilgoomesh 8mo ago

For 20-ish% of Alzheimer's patients, the Shingles vaccine may be a treatment. This has been suspected for a few years now but has received recent confirmation studies. https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/news/2025-11-18/promising-research-shingles-vaccine-treatment-alzheimers-disease https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/news/2025-11-18/promising-rese...

adrian_b 8mo ago
While the study was about the shingles vaccine, I wonder if having passed normally through shingles influences positively or negatively the chances of later developing Alzheimer's.

Aurornis 8mo ago

> For a disease which (to my knowledge) can’t be slowed down or reversed, I think it’s a fair question why we would want to detect Alzheimer’s. Getting an accurate diagnosis is always important. Cognitive decline could be caused by other problems, some of which are more treatable than others. If this test came back negative it would suggest extra testing to rule out other conditions like a brain tumor or hydrocephalus.

redox99 8mo ago

> For a disease which (to my knowledge) can’t be slowed down or reversed There's Lecanemab and Donanemab. The effects are modest however.

ChadNauseam 8mo ago
Trontinemab is in trials right now and has 92% of patients achieving low amyloid levels. And more people should be able to take it as it causes less brain swelling (ARIA-E). I'm unaffiliated, I just follow medical research in my free time. But I'm quite hopeful about this medication

peter_retief 8mo ago

This disease is in my family, honestly not sure I would want to know if I will get it.

shevy-java 8mo ago

I understand the "detect deadly progression but no cure" problem; this was the same rationale people used when Huntington disease could be verified in diagnostics. Many people don't want to know, but some want to know, in particular as you can manage some things here or there - diet affects many things, for instance, even aside from metaboic genetic defects. And for any (molecular) therapy at a later time you need to understand the molecular basis to some extent. Some things can be found out via trial and error (vaccination and before) but for some disease that can not work. Alzheimer is quite complex.

eshack94 8mo ago

Not saying anything about the article at-hand, but assuming we were able to detect it with such certainty, I think it would greatly increase the funding, rigor, and breadth or research devoted to finding a cure or treatment that actually worked.

raincole 8mo ago

> doctors correctly diagnosed Alzheimer's in 75.5% of cases, but when incorporating blood test results, diagnostic accuracy increased to 94.5% These patients are already seeing doctors. Would you rather your doctor to hide the diagnosis just because your disease isn't curable (for now)? It's not like we're testing the whole population in masse.

KurSix 8mo ago

Even without a cure, there's still a lot of practical value in knowing earlier

snowhale 8mo ago

[dead]

scott_w 8mo ago

> For a disease which (to my knowledge) can’t be slowed down or reversed, I think it’s a fair question why we would want to detect Alzheimer’s. Maybe there are other reasons, but my suspicion is that we will be able to, and an easy detection method significantly widens the pool of subjects to study later on. Your point at the end is essentially correct. There's a couple of reasons that come to my mind: Early detection lets us test cures more quickly. You can see if the treatment is working without waiting 30 years for symptoms to develop or not. If prevention is all that works, we can verify lifestyle changes, again without having to wait 30 years for symptoms to develop. Early detection means there's more of a chance of any future treatment succeeding and the patient returning to a normal life. Think of early detection of cancer or heart disease meaning you can be treated with less risky medication and procedures and minimise the damage being done.

hankman86 8mo ago

To rule out Alzheimers when you wonder whether your recent episodes of forgetfulness have an underlying medical cause. That aside, some moderately effective drugs have recently been approved that can slow down the disease in its early stages. And even if you are no candidate for these: you can start organising the life around you while you still can. Like moving to an assisted living facility.