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At
the 2012 Alzheimer’s International Conference, held in Vancouver, B.C.,
researchers said recent research has shown that, “Over the course of two
decades, doctors in the United States have been diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease
earlier—perhaps reflecting development of treatments for the disease.” This
study—which involved 1,464 Alzheimer’s patients—looked at two well-established
instruments for diagnosing the disease: the “Mini-Mental State Examination” and
the “Alzheimer’s Disease Assessment Scale.” It found that over the past 20
years or so, average patient scores on these two tests have changed in ways
that, according to researcher Cynthia Murphy of Boston University, “Would
indicate that doctors are, indeed, diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease earlier.” In
fact, she suggests that these findings—taken along with those of another recent
such study of the “Activities of Daily Living” scale—indicate that Alzheimer’s
patients are now being “diagnosed one to two years earlier in the disease
process.”
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