A New, Simple Test May Detect Risk for Alzheimer’s

A test combining thinking and movement can help identify heightened risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease even before significant behavioral signs of dementia appear, according to a new study.

Researchers from York University in Toronto, Canada divided study participants into 3 groups—those diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or who had a family history of Alzheimer’s, and 2 control groups consisting of young adults and older adults without a family history of the disease, and asked each group to complete 4 increasingly demanding visual-spatial and cognitive-motor tasks on dual screen laptops. The study found that 81.8 per cent of the participants that had a family history of Alzheimer’s disease and those with MCI displayed difficulties on the most cognitively demanding visual motor task.
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According to the authors, the test was designed to detect the tendency for Alzheimer’s in those who experienced cognitive difficulty, even though they demonstrated no outward signs of the disease. The tests included a task that involved moving a computer mouse in the opposite direction of a visual target on the screen, requiring participants’ brains to think before and during their hand movements. This test revealed the most pronounced difference between the MCI and family history group and the 2 control groups, according to Lauren Sergio, PhD, associate professor in the School of Kinesiology and Health Science at York University, and lead author of the study.

The findings don’t predict who will develop Alzheimer’s, but show a difference in the brains of most participants with MCI or a family history of the disease, adds Sergio.

“We believe that our data indicate there are processing problems in the brain networks responsible for controlling higher-level daily activity skills [such as] driving and computer use,” says Sergio. “Current exams covered by general practitioners don’t assess this type of ‘think and move at the same time’ skill that would tap into these networks that nevertheless can point to subclinical problems.”

Having patients perform a task such as guiding a mouse arrow to a point on a computer monitor while the mouse is rotated around—i.e., so up is down—“you can push the system to see if there are any red flags raised about the state of the patient’s brain integrity,” she adds. “The patient and general practitioner would then be aware to monitor daily functional behavior for future decline.”

—Mark McGraw

Reference

Hawkins K, Sergio L, et al. Visuomotor Impairments in Older Adults At Increased Alzheimer's Disease Risk. Journal of Alzheimer's Disease. 2014.