Alzheimer’s : early detection in the retina

lightscribe/Epictura

Published the 29.08.2017 at 13: 45

A A

Keywords :

alzheimerdiagnosticfond eye

Alzheimer’s disease may not be cured. The degeneration cognitive impairment is irreversible, and the pathology evolves irreversibly to symptoms of more and more heavy. Only thinning for the sick and their family and friends : if she is taken care of early, it is possible to slow down its evolution.

The research of diagnostic methods is therefore one of the strands of research on Alzheimer’s. And progress is being made. The doctors at the famous Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles (United States) argue that with a simple photo of the back of the eye, it would be possible to detect the disease at an early stage.

A simple test

It is already possible to do an early screening. But it is based in general on interrogation, follow-up imaging studies, or search for markers via a lumbar puncture. Diagnostic tests sometimes heavy, and expensive.

What was proposed in the american doctors, is a simple alternative, minimally invasive and inexpensive. It consists of injecting a fluorescent substance to patients. It will attach to amyloid plaques, clumps of proteins that, by their accumulation, are, at least in part, responsible for the degeneration of neurons in Alzheimer’s disease.

Then, by rétinographie, that is to say, a photograph of the retina, these plates revealed by the fluorescent product can be observed.