Why Early Detection for Alzheimer's Disease Is So Critically Important

Opening Announcer:
You're listening to ReachMD. Uncover the truth about Alzheimer's in this special series, Alzheimer's Disease: Towards Earlier Detection.

Dr. Matt Birnholz:
Welcome to the ReachMD series Alzheimer’s Disease: Towards Earlier Detection. I’m Dr. Matt Birnholz. On this episode, we hear from Dr. Douglas Scharre, Professor of Clinical Neurology and Psychiatry with the Center for Cognitive and Memory Disorder at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. Dr. Scharre explains why early detection for Alzheimer’s disease is so important to patient care.

Dr. Douglas Scharre:
Early detection is very important in Alzheimer’s disease and dementia in general. The main reason early detection is so critical is that it leads to earlier treatments for individuals suffering from these conditions. We know that the current medications for Alzheimer’s disease right now, the cholinesterase inhibitors and the NMDA antagonists, both work better the earlier you start the treatment for the individual earlier in their course of disease.And so in the future, early detection is going to be critical to get people starting treatment early, particularly for these disease-modifying agents, before they get to the ravages of the disease. The other very important part of early detection would be just helping increase supervision of individuals. So if you know mom or dad has cognitive issues early on, you’re gonna look at their medications to make sure that they’re taking them correctly, they’re not running out, they’re getting the refills correctly, they’re having the right diet, they’re doing the right types of things to reduce chronic medical conditions and improve their life. Supervision may help reduce errors seen with finances: making mistakes with finances. If you watch mom or dad to individuals with cognitive issues, you’ll likely catch these things. And if you do that, then there’s less issues with hospital admissions or ER visits or emergency doctor visits because they’ve forgotten a medication or their chronic medical conditions are worse because of complications, because they’re not keeping up with their medications, for example. So all of these things, with better supervision, may save billions of healthcare dollars, and ultimately will lead to improved quality of life for both patients and families.

Dr. Matt Birnholz:
That was Dr. Douglas Scharre from the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. For access to continuing episodes of Alzheimer’s Disease: Towards Earlier Detection, visit our series page at ReachMD.com. Thanks for joining us.

Closing Announcer:
You've listening to ReachMD. Uncover the truth about Alzheimer's in this special series, Alzheimer's Disease: Towards Earlier Detection. To revisit any part of this discussion and to access other episodes visit ReachMD.com/timehidesalzheimers. Thank you for listening.