Neurodegenerative diseases like dementia and Alzheimer’s are more feared than cancer and heart disease combined, according to a 2016 survey, and one of the most frightening things about them is how little we still know. There are no cures, and few effective treatments.
So you might question the benefits of a 5-minute test that can assess your risk of getting dementia before you show any symptoms. The Integrated Cognitive Assessment (ICA) test… has been granted Food and Drug Administration clearance to be marketed in the United States and is being trialled at several NHS trusts in the UK. But is there any point in taking a test for a disease you can’t do anything about?
“There have been a lot of developments that make it more likely there will be a benefit of advance diagnosis than there would have been 15 years ago,” says Ivan Koychev, a clinical psychiatrist and researcher at the University of Oxford, who has used the ICA test in research for Dementias Platform, a UK project aimed at speeding up detection.
We know a lot more about the risk factors, for instance, and how to slow down the course of the disease through changes to diet, or by increased socialization.
