What does early detection of Alzheimer's give you, given that it's untreatable? And, isn't ignorance bliss in this case (i.e. the less time you spend knowing about the problem, the better)?
I agree. After seeing how my mother has been ravaged by dementia, I would prefer to not know 15 years in advance. She was in relatively good health and exercised, etc, and took medication to help slow down the disease but it didn't help. I would rather just not know and commit suicide once I am in the moderate stage of dementia. It really is that bad.
That combined with the relatively high false positives makes this a pretty bad investment so far, in my opinion.
Lifestyle changes such as regular exercise, better sleep and better nutrition are shown to reduce the risk of developing Alzheimer's dementia later in life. Also, when a disease-modifying treatment is found, the person who knows the status of their brain health will be the one to benefit most from the treatment before developing symptoms. Once symptoms of cognitive decline show up, it may be too late to intervene.
Many people are interested to know the status of their brain health -- the same way as they can have health screen for other organs -- and they are interested to be able to track the status of their brain tissue over time to see whether a lifestyle modification they tried actually did have a beneficial effect on the brain or not.
Arguably, there will be no viable treatment unless asymptomatic volunteers get tested with our software so they can enroll in a clinical trail, so why defer the test?
Many people? I have absolutely no data whatsoever, but I would have estimated this group of people making up 0.1% of the population or less. Do you know many people who are so interested in their brain that they will take this test without having a known risk of Alzheimer's?
However, three tests spaced out in 1 month intervals might be enough to measure progression whenever treatment becomes available. I'm not really sold on the idea that measuring this now is relevant or helpful. It's quite iffy.
A treatment plan for a currently incurable disease? The only treatments currently available (exercise, better lifestyle, etc) has minimal effects, there is nothing that deterministically makes a material difference in the progress of the disease.
If disease progression can be observed then a treatment plan can be devised. Till now there has been a big problem making a hypothesis since early detection has been hard.
A treatment plan that consists of what exactly? None of the treatments make very much difference at all. A treatment plan filled with basically useless treatments isn't much of a treatment plan.
There are a really large number of companies working on eliminating up stream causes of Alzheimer's, many with promising results. So early detection gives you time to find out if there is something you can do about it, to prepare for the eventuality, and to save a bit of money for treatment.
That combined with the relatively high false positives makes this a pretty bad investment so far, in my opinion.