Should Over 60s be Screened for Alzheimer's?

Mental health experts have recently proposed routinely testing over 60s for early signs of Alzheimer's.

The early diagnosis could be carried out using a simple computer test developed this year to test patients' learning ability and memory. Such tests could, it has been suggested, screen over 60s for early signs of dementia or Alzheimer's.

It is hoped that new treatments due to be available in the next few years would stop the disease taking hold. For this to happen, early detection is vital.

Barbara Sahakian, Professor of Clinical Neuropsychology at Cambridge University, said: "If you wait until somebody has a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease, they already have to have a decline in their previous level of functioning, we obviously need to go in earlier."

Professor Sahakian added; "We have drugs which are close to being ready for use, so we have to get to the point where we are screening because otherwise the drugs will be there but we won't know who to put them into. I think we should be screening people over 60 for these things."

A spokesman for the Alzheimer's Society said, however, that current diagnostic tests are not accurate enough for such early diagnosis, but they would "welcome a debate on the value of screening for over 75s".

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