Alzheimers Eye Test

New Early Diagnosis Test Being Developed

An Alzheimers eye test will be available to detect this debilitating disease. Researchers in the United Kingdom are developing a new eye-test that can detect Alzheimer’s long before symptoms start showing. It should be available in the high street in approximately three years through a simple eye-test. This non-invasive, inexpensive test could revolutionize the treatment of Alzheimer’s patients and give them and their loved ones time to prepare for the future. There is the hope that it will lead to a cure for this disease, which is predicted to double within the next 25 years.

At the moment the disease is diagnosed through a process of elimination, with expensive brain scans ruling out other types of dementia and other reasons for memory loss. The only way of confirming the diagnosing of Alzheimer’s is through a post-mortem. Currently there is no cure, but drugs can stop the disease from progressing for up to five years. Unfortunately, these drugs are expensive and do not work for every one who is inflicted with the diseases.

Iridologists have long been studying the coloured part of the eye to diagnose early signs of disease in different organs of the body and suggest ways of preventing further development, but the light-sensitive cells in the retina at the back of the eye are new being used to diagnose what is happenning in the brain. The Alzheimers Eye Test uses this to diagnose early signs of the disease.

Scientists at University College, London have discovered that changes is the retina can show that brain cells are dying and have identified the pattern of brain-cell death in Alzheimer’s patients. They have been correct so far in the diagnosis of all those tested in the trials they have been running. They are developing and testing a simple eye-test that can be given routinely to middle-aged people when they have their eyes tested. The test will also be able to detect early signs of Parkinson’s and other age-related diseases. This will mean that the disease will be detected far earlier because it can start up to twenty years before the first symptoms appear.

However, a lot of people might not want to know that they have this incurable condition so far in advance and it will inevitably lead to insurance companies not wishes to cover the condition or applying higher rates to people who test positive to the Alzheimers Eye Test. for the disease. Perhaps it is time that the governments become proactive in regulating the insurance industry. As with the banking industry these companies are building their business with the money of the clients they should ultimately be serving.

(Sources: Costa Blanca Post, Mail Online)