Early Alzheimer's Disease Detection Possible Through Blood Test

A new blood test that can detect early Alzheimer's has been created. A researcher from the Rowan University's School of Osteopathic Medicine has teamed with Durin Technologies, Inc to come up with this breakthrough test. 

The blood test is designed to leverage the body's immune response system to determine the disease early on while it is still in its mild form.  According to the Rowan research team, headed by Dr. Robert Nagele, claimed that the test can provide "unparalleled" accurate results, as reported by NJ.com.

With the test, detecting who has Alzheimer's at the mild cognitive impairment stage is more precise and easier. Early detection makes treatment more effective. 

About 60 percent of all MCI patients have MCI caused by an early stage of Alzheimer's disease," said Cassandra DeMarshall, the study's lead author, who is also currently a Ph.D. candidate at the Rowan University Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. "To provide proper care, physicians need to know which cases of MCI are due to early Alzheimer's and which are not."

The findings are significant because they can assist in creating simpler and less costly interventions. "Our results show that it is possible to use a small number of blood-borne autoantibodies to accurately diagnose early-stage Alzheimer's. These findings could eventually lead to the development of a simple, inexpensive and relatively noninvasive way to diagnose this devastating disease in its earliest stages," DeMarshall said. 

Nagele also praised the blood test for being the first to utilize autoantibody biomarkers in detecting early Alzheimer's. 

In a related news, there is a new research that revealed the most accurate symptoms to look out for in determining whether a person has Alzheimer's.

Contrary to what people think, memory loss is not the first sign of Alzheimer's. Instead, the trouble of navigation is the most accurate sign, as reported by Next Avenue.

According to one of the study's authors, Denise Head, the spatial navigation task she and her team used in the study to assess cognitive map skills were better at detecting preclinical Alzheimer's disease. They suggest that a person's performance on navigational tasks may be a powerful tool for detecting "earliest Alzheimer's disease-related changes in cognition."