“While more research is needed, because the UPSIT is much less expensive and easier to administer than PET imaging or lumbar puncture, odor identification testing may prove to be a useful tool in helping physicians counsel patients who are concerned about their risk of memory loss”, Dr. William Kreisl, assistant neurology professor and a physician at Columbia University Medical Center, said in the release. The Alzheimer’s diagnosis is usually based on mild cognitive impairment, but researchers are now focusing on mild behavioral impairment as an early indication of the disease. Researchers found that people with increased white matter hyperintensities (WMHs) – white spots that appear on brain scans and are commonly associated with Alzheimer’s and cognitive decline – could better tolerate WMH-related damage if they worked primarily with other people rather than with things or data.
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But now some researchers are zeroing in on a new concept they call “mild behavioral impairment”. The checklist include questions pertaining changes in an individual’s behavior, including anxiety, depression, agitation, impulsiveness and socially inappropriate.
Many patients with dementia, he explained, also have neuropsychiatric symptoms – an umbrella term for problems with behavior, mood and perception. “It’s a sustained change from their former ways of functioning”.
Those with a thinner layer of neurons were more likely to perform poorly on cognitive tests – which could indicate the early stages of dementia.
The Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Institute researchers tried to compare the impact of three kinds of brain training games in a group of more than 2,800 cognitively healthy people with an average age of 74 in a decade long period for the Advanced Cognitive Training for Independent and Vital Elderly (ACTIVE) study.
“It became clear that behavioural changes are fundamental to the overall dementia process”, he told Global News.
The preliminary findings were presented during the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference that is being held in Toronto, Canada from July 22 to 28.
Study: Edwards J et al.
“If you can reduce the chance of getting dementia by almost 50% with this, that’s huge”, says Michael Roizen, chairman of the Wellness Institute at the Cleveland Clinic, who wasn’t involved in the study.
“Until now, there hasn’t been a good way to measure it”, said Keith Fargo, director of scientific programs and outreach for the Alzheimer’s Association. Of these, 58 participants had mild cognitive impairment.
One is decreased motivation, referring to apathy towards the things a person once enjoyed. An example would be when a grandparent seems to lose interest in her grandchildren’s lives, Ismail said. The symptoms must mark a change from prior behaviour and have lasted at least six months.
They said the link between Alzheimer’s and these mental health concerns has been established but it’s still unclear which comes first.
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Right now, there are no treatments that can prevent or change the underlying course of Alzheimer’s disease. In nursing homes, patients wouldn’t be referred to him unless they had “difficult behaviours”.
