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Breakthrough App Detects Early-Onset Dementia: Latest R&D News from US

Latest R&D News From US!This APP Helps Detect Early-Onset Dementia – International – Business Times Skip to main content

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A smartphone app can help identify the main causes of early-onset dementia, especially in people at higher risk. Scientists have confirmed that a cognitive test administered via a smartphone app is at least as sensitive as detecting early signs of frontotemporal dementia in people with a genetic disorder, The Guardian reported, and medical assessments performed by hospitals are equally high. Frontotemporal dementia is a neurodegenerative disease that typically affects middle-aged patients. As the disease progresses, the parts of the brain responsible for skills such as planning ahead, prioritizing tasks, filtering out distractions, and controlling impulses gradually decline. About a third of cases have a genetic component, but research into the disease has been hampered by problems with early diagnosis and the difficulty of monitoring patients’ responses to treatments that may only be effective in the early stages of the disease. Adam Boxer, a professor at the University of California, San Francisco, said: “Most patients with frontotemporal dementia are diagnosed at a very advanced stage because their symptoms were often mistaken for mental disorders when they were young.” Smartphones have attracted people’s attention. as a tool for the diagnosis and evaluation of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Huntington’s diseases. To study its usefulness in frontotemporal dementia, Boxer and his colleagues worked with US software company Datacubed Health to develop a device that records cognitive performance during a series of cognitive tests, including assessments of executive functions. “We also created tests to test different aspects of walking, balance, slow movement and speech,” said Dr. Adam Staffaroni, a clinical neuropsychologist at the University of California, San Francisco. They were higher in 360 genes. tested on adults at risk of developing frontotemporal dementia, some of whom have not yet shown obvious symptoms. The study, published in the American Journal, found that the app can accurately detect dementia in these high-risk groups, perhaps even more sensitively than gold-standard neuropsychological assessments typically performed in clinics. Detects the early stages of the disease. While there are no immediate plans to roll out the app to the public, Staffaroni said it could help bolster research into the disease. More than 30 such clinical trials are currently underway or in the planning stages, including studies of therapies that could help slow the progression of the disease in some carriers of the gene. “The lack of outcome measures that can be easily collected in the early stages of the disease and that are sensitive to the effects of treatment has been a major obstacle,” he said. Frequent in-person assessments also place a heavy burden on patients, healthcare professionals and doctors. “We hope that smartphone assessments will spur new trials of promising treatments. Ultimately, the app could be used to monitor treatment effectiveness, replacing most or all tests that would require a trip to the hospital.”

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