Five-Minute Test Could Pinpoint Early Dementia

A new test for Alzheimer's disease could take as little as five minutes to complete. Researchers at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge have come up with the screening test that proves to be more accurate than many other tests.

The study was published in the British Medical Journal. The new testing could lead to early diagnose of dementia. The TYM (test your memory) test is a series of 10 different tasked. A person is scored on their ability to do the test. The test was completed by 540 people in the study who were healthy and had no history of neurological disease, memory problems or brain injury. The control panel was aged from 18 to 95. Another panel of 139 patients were also tested, this panel had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's or mild cognitive impairment. Rebecca Wood, chief Executive of the Alzheimer’s Research Trust said that the test could be a big step forward in spotting the earliest signs of dementia. The Trust funded the research. Times Online reports:

“Two-thirds of the 700,000 people in the UK with dementia remain undiagnosed, which is why the Alzheimer’s Research Trust funded this significant study.”

Jeremy Brown, a consultant neurologist at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge was one of those who worked on the test. He said that the test could be filled out by patients and then their doctor could make an assessment on the areas of semantic knowledge, calculation, verbal fluency, spatial knowledge and mental recall. The test was designed so that those with no educational problems and healthy would have no trouble scoring highly. The top score on the test is 50 points. Those who have Alzheimer's have an average score of 33 points while those with mild cognitive impairment score on average 45 out of 50 points.