Diagnosis

At present there are no absolute tests for dementia, only some psychological and some brain imaging tests for the early symptoms. Significant research is needed to develop accurate ways of diagnosing dementia in the early stages. By predicting who is likely to develop dementia and who is in the early stages of the disease, treatments and future ways of halting dementia could be given before the brain suffers injury.

The Alzheimer's Research Trust hopes to develop a blood test or some other simple procedure that could both predict who is likely to develop dementia and who is already suffering from the earliest, most subtle symptoms (as opposed to normal ageing). We are funding research that aims to:

• Improve neuroimaging so that numerical evaluation of the progression of brain shrinkage can be used to help both diagnosis and ways to monitor the effects of possible treatments. We believe that numerous advances in neuroimaging are likely and in Alzheimer's disease these will probably include MRI and PET imaging of amyloid or plaques and tau or tangles.
• Develop biomarkers for dementia using blood, cerebrospinal fluid or even urine. A concerted search is on for genetic or protein changes indicative of Alzheimer's disease that might be used as an early diagnostic marker or a marker of disease progression.
• Increase the effectiveness of psychological tests that will help both to monitor dementia and also predict who is likely to suffer from it.
• Improve our understanding of mild cognitive impairment and ways to predict which people with this condition go on to develop full dementia and who will stay mildly impaired - a development that could help us to better understand Alzheimer's and other diseases and ways to slow down progression.