Written by Youngwoo Chang An introduction to Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease, which someone in the US develops every 65 seconds according to Discover, is a disease which almost any of us may have heard of, as well as its basic symptoms. Firstly, Alzheimer's is not a disease that comes with age; there are a number of people with Alzheimer's under the age of 65 (200,000 people in the US according to the Alzheimer's Association). The actual cause of this illness is the unusual accumulation of sticky proteins around the brain cells, yet this is still under study. What can be done about Alzheimer's disease? People of Alzheimer's start out with a mild memory loss which worsens over time, and will have a difficult time communicating with one another over time. With current technology, Alzheimer can be detected five to six years before the actual identification of the illness, but research shows that the brain starts to be affected and even start deteriorating up to 20 years before the diagnosis. Since treatments work more efficiently in the early stages of diagnosis, scientists are looking for an indicator of the early stages of Alzheimer's. Recent research shows the subtle changes in the absorption of glucose in the brain and metabolic changes in the early stages of the disease. Since metabolic changes are faint and challenging to detect, the researchers made an algorithm that used deep learning to detect Alzheimer's disease. It was tested on more than a thousand patients and the algorithm was programmed to analyze the patterns of the metabolic changes and conclude if the patient has the disease. Then it moved on to a small handful of patients who were never tested. This program, which achieved an accuracy of 100%, is very successful as it is able to detect Alzheimer's more than six years before diagnosis. The researchers are planning to move on to a larger patient group to train the program even further and so that it can detect Alzheimer's in the earlier stages. SOURCES:
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Writers & Editors- Seoyoon Chang Archives
January 2019
Categories
All
|