It constitutes 60% of dementia, with 5-7% of the prevalence rate in European and North American population. In addition, the disease costs £26 billion a year to the UK economy.
The study team utilized a new method to passively measure the brain activity of the patients by looking at a series of flashing images on a computer over two minutes, whilst their brain waves are measured using an EEG cap.
The Fastball EEG technology
It was found that this ‘Fastball EEG’ technology is highly effective at picking up small, subtle changes in brain waves, which occur when a person remembers an image. Moreover, it is also cheap, portable, and relies on pre-existing technology.
Presently, the Alzheimer’s diagnosis is predominantly done using a combination of subjective and objective reports of cognitive decline. However, by knowing more about people’s disease at an earlier stage drugs can be prescribed earlier when they may be more effective.
The Fastball EEG technology is so passive that the person assessed has to do nothing but simply watch a screen of flashing images with their brain activity being measured simultaneously.
The study team future anticipates that the Fastball EEG could help lower the age of diagnosis by up to five years. This forms a great leap as a viable clinical tool for early AD diagnosis.
“We are at a really exciting stage in its development. We are testing the tool in earlier and earlier stages of Alzheimer’s and expanding the type of brain function it can measure, to include language and visual processing. This will help us to not only understand Alzheimer’s but also the many other less common forms of dementia. Ultimately, the Holy Grail of a tool like this would be a dementia screening tool used in middle age for everyone, regardless of symptoms, in the same way we test for high blood pressure. We are a long way from that, but this is a step towards that goal,” says Lead researcher and cognitive neuroscientist Dr. George Stothart of the Department of Psychology at the University of Bath.
Source: Medindia
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