R&D Areas | Neurology

In an aging population dementias are a serious threat. Currently 30 million people worldwide suffer from Alzheimer´s disease (AD) and the World Health organization projects that this number will triple over the next 20 years. The cumulative incidence of AD has been estimated to rise from about 5% by age 70 to 50% by age 90. The clinical diagnosis of dementias is established late in the course of the disease process with poor sensitivity and specificity making the differentiation between various dementias like AD, frontotemporal dementia (FTD), and vascular dementia difficult.

Figure 1: All types of dementia are progressive. This means that the structure and chemistry of the brain become increasingly damaged over time. People who have Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) are at an increased risk of going on to develop Alzheimer’s disease (or another form of dementia). Unfortunately first signs of a decreasing cognitive level become evident at the time when most of the plaque precipitation has already been occurred. Our approach enables us to predict with high confidence those patients with MCI, who subsequently convert to Alzheimer´s disease.

People are often not diagnosed with dementia until their symptoms begin to affect their quality of life and their ability to carry out everyday activities. It is important that people with Alzheimer’s disease are identified as early as possible so that they can benefit from medicamentous and/or cognitive treatments in the future. Identifying people with MCI is one way to try to achieve this.