Spinal-Fluid Test Is Found to Predict Alzheimer’s

[Nonno]

"Researchers report that a spinal fluid test can be 100 percent accurate in identifying patients with significant memory loss who are on their way to developing Alzheimer’s disease.

Although there has been increasing evidence of the value of this and other tests in finding signs of Alzheimer’s, the study, which will appear Tuesday in the Archives of Neurology, shows how accurate they can be. The new result is one of a number of remarkable recent findings about Alzheimer’s.

After decades when nothing much seemed to be happening, when this progressive brain disease seemed untreatable and when its diagnosis could be confirmed only at autopsy, the field has suddenly woken up.

Alzheimer’s, medical experts now agree, starts a decade or more before people have symptoms. And by the time there are symptoms, it may be too late to save the brain. So the hope is to find good ways to identify people who are getting the disease, and use those people as subjects in studies to see how long it takes for symptoms to occur and in studies of drugs that may slow or stop the disease. "

More at: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/10/health/research/10spinal.html?_r=1

 

[DEEKAYPEE8569]

"Researchers report that a spinal fluid test can be 100 percent accurate in identifying patients with significant memory loss who are on their way to developing Alzheimer’s disease.

Although there has been increasing evidence of the value of this and other tests in finding signs of Alzheimer’s, the study, which will appear Tuesday in the Archives of Neurology, shows how accurate they can be. The new result is one of a number of remarkable recent findings about Alzheimer’s.

After decades when nothing much seemed to be happening, when this progressive brain disease seemed untreatable and when its diagnosis could be confirmed only at autopsy, the field has suddenly woken up.

Alzheimer’s, medical experts now agree, starts a decade or more before people have symptoms. And by the time there are symptoms, it may be too late to save the brain. So the hope is to find good ways to identify people who are getting the disease, and use those people as subjects in studies to see how long it takes for symptoms to occur and in studies of drugs that may slow or stop the disease. "

More at: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/10/health/research/10spinal.html?_r=1

Well, my Brother and I are Hydrocephalic: (Water on the Brain) and shunted.
Keyword: "Hydrocephalus" I, now at "the ripe 'old' age" of 41 have been struggling with short-term memory loss for years. I don't know how my 36-year-old Brother; also Hydrocephalic; is with his memory.

How recent is this test? What is the margin for error for this test? I personally have never heard of such a thing......although, my Paternal Grandmother (89) has Alzheimer's; I don't know what stage.