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Blood test boosts Alzheimer's diagnosis accuracy to 94.5%, clinical study shows

medicalxpress.com

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Re: Blood test boosts Alzheimer's diagnosis accuracy to 94.5%, clinical study shows

#11

Post by bgirard »

janalsncm wrote: post #4

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 u…

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.

Re: Blood test boosts Alzheimer's diagnosis accuracy to 94.5%, clinical study shows

#12

Post by ronbenton »

janalsncm wrote: post #4

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 u…

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

Re: Blood test boosts Alzheimer's diagnosis accuracy to 94.5%, clinical study shows

#13

Post by Dylan16807 »

tptacek wrote: post #7
melling wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

Re: Blood test boosts Alzheimer's diagnosis accuracy to 94.5%, clinical study shows

#14

Post by Baeocystin »

janalsncm wrote: post #4

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 u…

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.

Re: Blood test boosts Alzheimer's diagnosis accuracy to 94.5%, clinical study shows

#15

Post by toomuchtodo »

janalsncm wrote: post #4

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 u…

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.

Re: Blood test boosts Alzheimer's diagnosis accuracy to 94.5%, clinical study shows

#16

Post by hn1986 »

janalsncm wrote: post #4

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 u…

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

Re: Blood test boosts Alzheimer's diagnosis accuracy to 94.5%, clinical study shows

#17

Post by staticassertion »

janalsncm wrote: post #4

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 u…

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?

Re: Blood test boosts Alzheimer's diagnosis accuracy to 94.5%, clinical study shows

#18

Post by dzink »

This needs to include life-changing false positive rates. Imagine being given a diagnosis like this - people around you who know and any corporations who can sniff it out by snooping on your communications can lead to much rejection early in life. What happens when the diagnosis is as positive when it shouldn’t have been?

Re: Blood test boosts Alzheimer's diagnosis accuracy to 94.5%, clinical study shows

#19

Post by irjustin »

janalsncm wrote: post #4

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 u…

> 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.

Re: Blood test boosts Alzheimer's diagnosis accuracy to 94.5%, clinical study shows

#20

Post by cpncrunch »

dzink wrote: post #18

This needs to include life-changing false positive rates. Imagine being given a diagnosis like this - people around you who know and any corporations who can sniff it out by snooping on your communications can lead to much rejection early in life. What happens when the diagnosis is as positive when it shouldn’t have been?

As per the article, the test is used in conjunction with clinical diagnosis, not instead of.
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