The Use Of Brain Imaging In Diagnosing Alzheimer’s Disease

Until recently, diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease has been frustrating because there has been no hard and fast way to make the diagnosis, except an autopsy after the affected has died. You could say with nearly 90% accuracy that someone probably had Alzheimer’s, but there was no way to be absolutely certain.

Diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease involved taking a thorough history, doing a physical exam, running lab tests, and administering various mental status examinations. All of these tests and procedures were done to make sure it wasn't something other than Alzheimer’s disease. To make matters even more confusing, there were two sets of guidelines for diagnosing Alzheimer’s.

NINDS-ADRDA (National Institute for Neurological and Communicative Disorders and Stroke-Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorder Association) Guidelines for Diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease

The NINDS-ADRDA guidelines say that you can say someone probably has Alzheimer’s disease if she has dementia with progressive problems with memory and at least one other area of brain functioning. The client has to be between 40 and 90 years of age, and they can't find anything else wrong.

DSM-IV-TR (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, 4th version) Guidelines for Diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease

The DSM guidelines say that you can say someone probably has Alzheimer’s disease if they have memory problems plus problems speaking, moving or understanding the information he receives from his senses. The problems must have started gradually and be progressively getting worse, to the point that he is having trouble with work or social situations, and they can't find anything else wrong.

Brain Imaging and Diagnosing Alzheimer’s Disease

Recently, scientists have begun to do research on diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease with different kinds of brain imaging. A small study in 2003 found that people whose MRI’s showed that they lost brain tissue in a particular part of their brains later developed symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. If this was true, if the study could be proven to be accurate, Alzheimer’s disease could be diagnosed before symptoms appeared. This is important, because there are new medicines to treat Alzheimer’s disease, and the earlier you start taking them, the more they help.

Since then, both PET and SPECT scanning have been used to definitely diagnose Alzheimer’s disease. There are physical changes in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease that we now have the ability to see. PET or SPECT scans provide a definite diagnosis, and are enough of a standard procedure for diagnosing Alzheimer’s that Medicare pays for them.

PET or SPECT scans are usually performed as soon as a person begins to develop memory problems or suspicions that they might have Alzheimer’s disease. People with a family history of Alzheimer’s disease might consider having scans performed periodically after they reach a certain age, as early treatment is the best hope they have for a long and productive life after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

With newer medical imaging procedures, diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease is no longer a guessing game. And that opens the door to earlier and more effective treatment, and a better quality of life for those who do have the disease.




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