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Comment by paulpauper | Hacker News Reader

The problem with AD is by the time the symptoms appear, the brain is already irreparable ravaged. The damage is actually macroscopically visible. Treatment would have to begin long before symptoms show, which would mean identifying people who are at risk.

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If you have MRI scans of your brain, you can upload them to brainkey.ai to track differences over time. They even offer a ≈400USD MRI scan out of pocket if you live close to one of their participating scanning centers (e.g. in the Bay Area).

I think any person newly diagnosed with alzheimers would jump at the chance to stop its progression.

Once you get an alzheimer's diagnosis your brain is pretty ravaged. The diseases process probably starts decades before most diagnoses.

And I think anyone newly diagnosed would love to have progression stopped at diagnosis.

What’s your point?

It’s not a total cure and restoration, but it’s better than now- where your brain is ravaged at diagnosis and gets worse until death.

The problem is what would halt progression at diagnosis isn't necessarily the same thing that would halt progression 20 years earlier. And there is evidence to suggest this is the case.

Right, but these are separate things that would both be beneficial. They should be exclusive pursuits.

Currently we have neither. I would prefer some preventative therapy that makes it never happen. I would also like a therapy that halts progression once diagnosed.

Luckily https://www.nia.nih.gov/news/blood-tests-show-promise-early-... points at a test that looks like it can figure out who will develop Alzheimer's years before there are any symptoms. (In their dataset, up to 20 years before.)

What can you do if you find it early?

prepare your will

There are many studies underway to find biomarkers eg changes in the blood proteome, sleep, etc for the pre-disease prodromal state of AD.

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