Memory and thinking skills seem to deteriorate rapidly among people who go on to be diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease--compared to those who are aging normally--says a study in the journal Neurology.Researchers from Rush University Medical Center in Chicago followed 1,168 older adults, all of whom, at the beginning of the study, did not have dementia. After a mean of five to six years, participants had a detailed clinical evaluation, and 614 were found to have no cognitive impairment, 395 had mild cognitive impairment, and 149 had Alzheimer’s disease. Participants then completed brief cognitive testing at 3-year intervals. Compared with the "no cognitive impairment" group, the annual rate of cognitive decline was increased more than twofold in those with mild cognitive impairment--and more than fourfold in those with Alzheimer’s disease. The results did not vary by race, sex, or age.
"These results show that we need to pay attention to this time before Alzheimer's disease is diagnosed, when people are just starting to have problems forgetting things," lead author Robert S. Wilson, of Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, said in a news release from the American Academy of Neurology.
What the study may be telling us is that by the time of an actual diagnosis, dementia may have progressed into final stages, the disease present (though in a far less debilitating form) for many years.
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