CANADA: Word Tests Give 10-year Warning on Alzheimer's

TORONTO, CANADA (TORONTO GLOBE & MAIL), June 15, 2005: Simple memory tests can indicate up to a decade in advance which seniors are likely to get Alzheimer's disease, researchers have found. Performance on one of these tests -- which involved trying to memorize a list of 15 words and repeat back as many as possible after a short delay -- was found to be closely linked to later incidence of the brain-destroying disease. A normal recall for those ages 60 to 75 would be 10 or 11 words, said Mary Tierney, director of geriatric research at Toronto's Sunnybrook and Women's College Health Sciences Center and lead researcher of the study. Acceptable recall for those over 75 might be in the range of eight or nine words. Since age and education are factored into the equation, Tierney could not give a precise point at which the numbers become worrisome. But she did say that much lower results, in the range of four words, could be a sign of problems to come. Tierney said previous research had shown that short-term predictions were possible, up to roughly two years, but that no one had found such an early indicator. She admitted that the results surprised the whole team. "These were people, either 65 and older, who were functioning in society," she said. "We could tell in that group, that combination of normal and those with mild impairment, 10 years before they actually developed the disease, their level of risk of getting it." Although the disease currently has no known cure, taking the test may eliminate a fear that plagues many seniors. "Many people worry that they have a memory problem when in fact they don't," Tierney said. "It also would provide that level of reassurance. But for those who have genuine concerns, or their families do, it provides more knowledge that ... their complaints are real." In the event that Alzheimer's is found likely, she said, people may choose to take steps to ward it off as long as possible. "If we can identify 10 years before, when people actually are functioning, (when) they don't actually have the disease, we can look at intervention strategies," she said. Mary Tierney's research was published on June 13 in the journal NEUROLOGY. Report by Oliver Moore / Toronto Globe and Mail