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Why should you have a brain scan to test for dementia when there’s no cure? Knowing can help you delay its onset, neurologist says
- New research shows dementia can be detected via brain imaging 9 years before symptoms start, which gives time to form good habits and hinder its progress
- Despite there being no cure, getting a scan and building your brain’s resilience through mental challenges, being social and living healthily will help
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This is the second instalment in a series on dementia, including the research into its causes and treatment, advice for carers, and stories of hope.
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New research has discovered that signs of dementia can be spotted up to nine years before the symptoms of the disease begin to manifest.
“We have always suspected this might be the case … [In people with genetic types of dementia] you can pick up subtle signs on brain scans years before a formal diagnosis,” says Timothy Rittman, a neurologist who led the research at Cambridge University, in the United Kingdom.
Rittman says he and his team were instead interested to see how early they could pick up these changes in people without a genetic risk of developing the condition.
“There have been lots of studies of treatments to stop or slow down dementia, but many have started too late, as have prevention strategies, like blood-pressure management,” he says.
We should start managing our blood pressure in middle age or earlier – years before any sort of damage might begin.
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