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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

#101

Post by KurSix »

janeway wrote: post #51

“We have no cure. I don’t want to know.” If astronomers announced that a large asteroid might strike Earth in twenty years, and that we currently had no way to deflect it, nobody would respond by saying, “Come back when you already have the rocket.” We would immediately build better telescopes to track it precisely, refine its trajectory models, and begin developing propulsion systems capable of interception. You do…

I get the logic, but I think the emotional side is a lot harder than the asteroid analogy makes it sound

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

#102

Post by bonsai_spool »

TheCapeGreek wrote: post #63

PSA to those with family affected by dementia/Alzheimer's at a relatively early age (say Left untreated for a very long time (decade+), it spreads to the brain and causes dementia among other things. Older generations with stigmas, taboos, or from lower educational backgrounds seem (to me) less likely to get tested, so it seems plausible. Source: Have recently discovered this myself with a family member from their ne…

> Source: Have recently discovered this myself with a family member from their neurologist.

The reason this was detected is that such testing is a standard practice with new dementia patients—among many other tests that identify etiologies of dementia.

No need for a 'PSA'.

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

#103

Post by KurSix »

dataflow wrote: post #74
janeway wrote: post #51

“We have no cure. I don’t want to know.” If astronomers announced that a large asteroid might strike Earth in twenty years, and that we currently had no way to deflect it, nobody would respond by saying, “Come back when you already have the rocket.” We would immediately build better telescopes to track it precisely, refine its trajectory models, and begin developing propulsion systems capable of interception. You do…

This analogy has a rather fatal flaw, which is that we already know people who've gotten Alzheimer's , and we also know for a fact people will continue to fall victim to it, at a pretty predictable rate. i.e. the detection has already happened ! Anyone who was waiting for a potential victim to appear before researching the cure already has all the reasons they need to research it. Detecting whom exactly the next vict…

It's less like discovering the asteroid exists, and more like refining its trajectory enough to know where and when to intercept it

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

#104

Post by n4r9 »

fletchowns wrote: post #76
iamflimflam1 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly - there are things that I would change now to make sure I make thing easier for myself and - more importantly - easier for the people around me.

Those plans should be in place regardless of the results of a blood test

I think there are many people (myself included) whose plans would change dramatically upon discovery of Alzheimer's, dementia, or some other degenerative disease. I might consider moving to somewhere with more liberal assisted suicide laws for example.

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

#105

Post by n4r9 »

mseepgood wrote: post #75
janeway wrote: post #51

“We have no cure. I don’t want to know.” If astronomers announced that a large asteroid might strike Earth in twenty years, and that we currently had no way to deflect it, nobody would respond by saying, “Come back when you already have the rocket.” We would immediately build better telescopes to track it precisely, refine its trajectory models, and begin developing propulsion systems capable of interception. You do…

> We would immediately build better telescopes to track it precisely, refine its trajectory models, and begin developing propulsion systems capable of interception That's not what would happen. We wouldn't mobilize. We'd fragment. Within days, the prediction would be declared partisan. One bloc would call it settled science; another would call it statistical hysteria. Billionaires would quietly commission private she…

The film "Don't Look Up" is very similar to what you describe.

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

#106

Post by KurSix »

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…

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

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

#107

Post by friendzis »

dataflow wrote: post #74
janeway wrote: post #51

“We have no cure. I don’t want to know.” If astronomers announced that a large asteroid might strike Earth in twenty years, and that we currently had no way to deflect it, nobody would respond by saying, “Come back when you already have the rocket.” We would immediately build better telescopes to track it precisely, refine its trajectory models, and begin developing propulsion systems capable of interception. You do…

This analogy has a rather fatal flaw, which is that we already know people who've gotten Alzheimer's , and we also know for a fact people will continue to fall victim to it, at a pretty predictable rate. i.e. the detection has already happened ! Anyone who was waiting for a potential victim to appear before researching the cure already has all the reasons they need to research it. Detecting whom exactly the next vict…

> Detecting whom exactly the next victim is going to be isn't really going to change anything as far as researching a treatment or cure goes.

Your reasoning relies heavily on this statement, which is only true if occurrence is entirely random, which is in most cases not true. A condition can easily mask the cause of the condition and then you have a confounder(-s) that you have no way of controlling. If you can build multiple strata with high risk ratios, you can find baseline similarities and differences in those groups. Early detection is highly important in knowing these confounders in the first place and then controlling for; and as GP mentions allows for more targeted research in treatment. Without this we could easily spend all the research effort on the effect (symptom) of a condition without even approaching treatment of the cause, i.e. prevention.

A very similar thing has happened with the infamous atherosclerotic plaques. AFAIK (correct me if you are aware of any evidence) there is currently no mechanistic model of how these atherosclerotic plaques form. Yet we spend so much effort in lowering the symptomatic side of increased cholesterol/LDL (which has well-known positives) even if there are known metabolic pathways for LDL increase, based entirely on correlational studies, when LDL is not even close to being the best predictor of cardiovascular conditions. LDL just happens to be easy to measure in a blood test and easy to control with oral medication.

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

#109

Post by tsimionescu »

r0ze-at-hn wrote: post #81
jader201 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “We have no cure. I don’t want to know.” > If astronomers announced that a large asteroid might strike Earth in twenty years, and that we currently had no way to deflect it, nobody would respond by saying, “Come back when you already have the rocket.” I don’t think the analogy fits, for a couple reasons. 1. People not wanting to know whether they have Alzheimer’s is because of the fear of a fate worse than death —…

Cure is the wrong word. Alzheimer’s can be best described as a failure of a system and "debris" accumulates faster than it can be "cleared". There are many moving parts and everyone is unique about the cause of their system failure. Wrote up my current systems understanding here https://metamagic.substack.com/p/the-alzheimers-equation , but it makes clear why treatments that target only one variable are mathematicall…

This is some personal opinion that I would bet the vast majority of Alzheimer's researchers would not actually agree with. The current consensus is that Alzheimer's is a particular disease, or a cluster of similar diseases.

I'm not saying your wrong, just that the level of confidence in your assertions is not warranted.

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

#110

Post by tsimionescu »

adrianN wrote: post #87
renewiltord wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they shouldn’t. Makes no sense to plan for living with a mental disability if you’re not close to needing it. I am absolutely not going to plan on a care facility right now. That sounds absolutely bogus.

Notarizing any wishes against some medical procedures in case a sudden accident ruins your ability to dissent prevents doctors from being forced to keep your body alive as long as possible.

That doesn't apply to Alzheimer's disease directly though. If you don't want to live when your conscious life is limited to short flashes of awareness among a deeply terrifying melange of visions of the past and hallucinations, DNR laws don't in any way force or even allow doctors to euthanize you. You can persist in this state for many years without ever triggering a DNR check.
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