New Diagnostic Guidelines Slated to Help Alzheimer's Detection

Alzheimer's experts, led by the Alzheimer's Association, have created a set of guidelines to better diagnose the disease.  The hope with the new guidelines is that doctors will be able to help people with Alzheimer’s prepare for the disease earlier and offer effective treatments.

Three workgroups spearheaded by the Alzheimer’s Association and the National Institute on Aging (NIA) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) developed the new guidelines. They expand the definition of Alzheimer’s to include two new phases of the disease — presymptomatic and mildly symptomatic but pre-dementia — along with dementia caused by Alzheimer’s.

The Alzheimer’s Association believes this moves us significantly closer to our goal of eventually detecting and treating Alzheimer’s before people experience the disease’s devastating symptoms.  “It is our hope that incorporating scientific knowledge gained and technological advances made over the past quarter century will improve current diagnosis, bring the field closer to earlier detection and treatment and, ultimately, lead to effective disease-modifying therapies,” said William Thies, Ph.D., Alzheimer’s Association chief medical and scientific officer.

Alzheimer’s is the sixth-leading cause of death in the United States and the only cause of death among the top 10 in the country that cannot be prevented, cured or even slowed.  The impact of the disease on business is huge. Nearly 15 million Alzheimer’s and dementia caregivers provide 17 billion hours of unpaid care valued at $202 billion.  Forty-four percent of those caregivers are employed full or part time, with 61 percent of women and 70 percent of men having to go in late, leave early or take time off due to caregiving responsibilities.