Feb 5, 2014
A Simple Test Tells Seniors If Their Memory Is Waning
Posted by Seb in category: life extension
by Cameron Scott- Singularity Hub
With so few effective treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, seniors who may be experiencing loss of cognitive function often avoid testing for fear that they may have the dreaded disease. Yet other, more treatable problems are thought to account for 40 percent of the 44.4 million cases of dementia worldwide, and the treatments that do exist for slowing Alzheimer’s disease require early intervention.
In other words, seniors stand to gain quite a bit from an expansion of cognitive check-ups.
Douglas Scharre, an Ohio State University neurologist, has developed a cognitive test that’s cheap and easy and can be administered to large groups of people at once. It’s a 20-minute, pencil-and-paper quiz that people can take anywhere, no doctor or dreaded computer needed.