[Padideh]

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.

[manmal]

Sure, but why not defer the test until a viable treatment is invented?

[Padideh]

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?

[manmal]

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?

[ScottBurson]

I have no known risk, but I could see taking it, just to check.

[Beltiras]

You might need to know about progression in the early stages to come up with a treatment plan.

[manmal]

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.

[pfarnsworth]

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.

[Beltiras]

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.

[pfarnsworth]

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.

[Beltiras]

Based on anything discovered with the patients found with the test. I imagine a 15 year followup will reveal something.

[Padideh]

Exactly.