by Fisher Center for Alzheimer’s Research Foundation at The Rockefeller University

A novel radioactive dye shows promise in detecting early brain changes in people with Alzheimer’s and could offer a new tool for diagnosing the disease at an early stage, when treatment may be most effective. The compound may also prove helpful in tracking the disease’s progression and developing new, more effective drugs for Alzheimer’s.

The search for a reliable diagnostic tool is important, because doctors believe that treatment may be most effective in the pre-symptomatic, earliest stages of Alzheimer’s, before memory loss and thinking problems have become established.

Such a tool could also help distinguish Alzheimer’s from other causes of memory loss, like depression, thyroid problems or medication side effects. Currently, an Alzheimer’s diagnosis can only be confirmed for sure following autopsy of the brain after a patient dies.

by Alzheimer’s Support

One of the sadder consequence of the Alzheimer’s and Dementia sufferers failing memory is that by middle-stage they are so deep in denial about their own situation that they can easily convince others that all is fine.

They learn to compensate for their failing memory long before a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s or Dementia has been made. My mom was totally deaf by the time I made an appointment to have her hearing checked because she continually assured me that she could hear just fine. Over a long period of time she had learned to lip-read and became so good at it that no one would guess she couldn’t hear at all. She drove her car into Middle Stage Alzheimer’s when she was a danger to others and herself. I only saw her twice a week and generally accepted what she said as truth.

• When asked if she had trouble driving, Mom would say, “Oh no. I’m a great driver.” We later learned that an employee of Safeway had taken her home numerous times because she couldn’t find her car in the parking lot when she finished her shopping.
• When we asked if she was all right living alone, Mom assured us that she was fine and loved living alone. Later we learned that she was heating the house through the winter with the kitchen oven, that she was sponge bathing because she no longer knew how to adjust the water for a shower, that she ate cookies 3 times a day because she didn’t remember how to cook or operate her microwave.