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Eye scans detect signs of Parkinson’s disease up to seven years before diagnosis

moorfields.nhs.uk

31–40 of 137 posts

Re: Eye scans detect signs of Parkinson’s disease up to seven years before diagnosis

#31
post #19

The idea of knowing you're going to get dementia sometime in the next decade is interesting. But I don't think it's straight-forward as to whether or not knowing is a good idea. It's also a little amusing to take the idea to its logical extreme: What if it becomes a societal norm to know? Would public venues allow soon-to-be dementia patients line cutting priority etc? Think amusement parks, transit reservations, hot…

We already do that. We think you may get cancer or dementia, we deny you insurance converge and proceed to drain you of opportunity

Who's "we".

Most developed countries (and many less developed countries) have some government coverage for cancer or dementia.

In New Zealand we can also pay for premium private insurance - although I don't think that helps much for chronic conditions.

Dementia will often still drain your bank account in New Zealand because the government here will take all your equity to pay for nursing home fees. But you do get looked after a bit when you have nothing, so there is that. You can avoid having all your equity taken but it does take some planning, some costs and some effort (e.g. give equity to children more than 7 years before you lose your marbles, e.g. use a family trust, e.g. if married it is very important to ensure your will limits equity damage to one if the other falls ill).

Re: Eye scans detect signs of Parkinson’s disease up to seven years before diagnosis

#32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true. The net effect is you can be denied coverage. They don't explain this to you when you get the check.

I know this used to be true, but is it still true post Obamacare?

You can not be denied health insurance or charged more because of pre-existing conditions under the affordable care act.

Other things such as life insurance is a very different story.

Re: Eye scans detect signs of Parkinson’s disease up to seven years before diagnosis

#33
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that case this should be made illegal to use diagnosis results in this way. Insurances are not supposed to be in the business of refusing coverage.

I believe Obamacare did fix this in the US, but at the trade off of requiring people to hold health insurance at all times. The thinking was otherwise people would just only get insurance when they got supper sick. The republicans chipped away at that requirement (it was one of the least popular parts of the bill) and I think removing it didn’t actually cause the insurance market to collapse which everyone thought it…

There’s no such qualifier for any heath insurance you get after 2010.

No denying you or charging you more because of a pre-existing condition.

Re: Eye scans detect signs of Parkinson’s disease up to seven years before diagnosis

#34
post #21
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We already do that. We think you may get cancer or dementia, we deny you insurance converge and proceed to drain you of opportunity

If insurances dont cover you for future risks its not worth calling it this way. Insurance's only purpose is to help the minority of us who will get serious problems throughout their lives, not that exclude them.

There is probably a difference between someone losing their health insurance after the insurance company finds out about their upcoming Parkinson disease, or their car's insurance sending an SMS about tripling the premium, and someone creating a life insurance contract for a million bucks one day after their diagnosis with a quickly killing unstoppable cancer type.

Re: Eye scans detect signs of Parkinson’s disease up to seven years before diagnosis

#35
post #29

I recall two companies working on this - RightEye and Neuralight: https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/17/righteyes-portable-eye-tra... https://techcrunch.com/2022/05/24/neuralight-aims-to-track-a... Probably there are more by now. As I recall this data is great for essentially saying "you should go get a real test." No one is diagnosing - just saying that a certain, say, eye movement slowness is correlated and you can det…

is early diagnosis useful?

If nothing else, it could allow you to make different decisions in your life. If my mind is going to be gone in 10 years, I'm sure as shit not saving for long term retirement anymore.

Re: Eye scans detect signs of Parkinson’s disease up to seven years before diagnosis

#36
post #29

I recall two companies working on this - RightEye and Neuralight: https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/17/righteyes-portable-eye-tra... https://techcrunch.com/2022/05/24/neuralight-aims-to-track-a... Probably there are more by now. As I recall this data is great for essentially saying "you should go get a real test." No one is diagnosing - just saying that a certain, say, eye movement slowness is correlated and you can det…

is early diagnosis useful?

If we could diagnose before actual Parkinsonian symptoms emerge, studying and developing preventative strategies and pharma will be a lot easier.

Parkinson's is funny in that sometimes what initially presents as Parkinsonian symptoms could develop into something like MSA over a span of 5 or more years. If this person were in a clinical trial for pure Parkinson's, it would sort of mess things up...

Re: Eye scans detect signs of Parkinson’s disease up to seven years before diagnosis

#37
post #20

The idea of knowing you're going to get dementia sometime in the next decade is interesting. But I don't think it's straight-forward as to whether or not knowing is a good idea. It's also a little amusing to take the idea to its logical extreme: What if it becomes a societal norm to know? Would public venues allow soon-to-be dementia patients line cutting priority etc? Think amusement parks, transit reservations, hot…

Knowing you will have something incurable has only downsides. You will dread the time ahead of you instead of enjoying your present time.

It depends on the person, but I'd wager that that perspective isn't even close to the majority one. Death is waiting for everyone, having an actual date range for it doesn't really change _that_ much.

Re: Eye scans detect signs of Parkinson’s disease up to seven years before diagnosis

#38
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If insurances dont cover you for future risks its not worth calling it this way. Insurance's only purpose is to help the minority of us who will get serious problems throughout their lives, not that exclude them.

If it’s predictable you’ll fail, that’s not insurance. Insurance is about unpredictable failures. It may sound odd, but it’s the nature of it.

Coverage or cost sharing then

Re: Eye scans detect signs of Parkinson’s disease up to seven years before diagnosis

#39
post #21
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We already do that. We think you may get cancer or dementia, we deny you insurance converge and proceed to drain you of opportunity

If insurances dont cover you for future risks its not worth calling it this way. Insurance's only purpose is to help the minority of us who will get serious problems throughout their lives, not that exclude them.

Insurance is absolutely not here with "the purpose of helping the minority of us."

Insurance is a business built on exploiting information asymmetries to make money from groups who they try to show empirically can't actually cost more than they pay. If they can find a way to exploit extra information in order to show you're in a riskier group and hence exclude you from coverage, they will. They have absolutely no reason not to.

Insurance companies and you absolutely have an oppositional relationship; they love when we collectively ignore this.

Re: Eye scans detect signs of Parkinson’s disease up to seven years before diagnosis

#40
post #20

The idea of knowing you're going to get dementia sometime in the next decade is interesting. But I don't think it's straight-forward as to whether or not knowing is a good idea. It's also a little amusing to take the idea to its logical extreme: What if it becomes a societal norm to know? Would public venues allow soon-to-be dementia patients line cutting priority etc? Think amusement parks, transit reservations, hot…

Knowing you will have something incurable has only downsides. You will dread the time ahead of you instead of enjoying your present time.

We have all have something incurable in the future. It’s called death. Do you dread the time ahead of you?
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