Eye Doctors May Someday Screen for Alzheimer's

• A simple x-ray can help diagnose a broken arm.
• A needle biopsy confirms the presence (or absence) of cancer.
• Male-pattern baldness is diagnosed with a glance.

Sadly, one of the biggest challenges regarding Alzheimer's Disease is the inability to definitively diagnose it. Although there are surveys and checklists used to score whether or not an individual's behavior is consistent with Alzheimer's Disease, there is no definitive clinical test that can be applied to living patients. A postmortem brain biopsy is the only surefire way to establish a concrete diagnosis.


A new test developed by researchers at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital may be able to detect early dementia using a painless, noninvasive eye test. The test, developed by a team led by Harvard's Dr. Lee Goldstein, uses a laser beam to scan the lens of the eye for deposits of beta-amyloid, a protein found in the brains of those who have Alzheimer's disease.


The lens analysis technique has been successful in a trial using mice: a brief pulse of infrared light into the eyes of four mice with Alzheimer's and four healthy control mice. The laser scan accurately identified which of the animals had the condition. The laser beam detects very earliest stages of amyloid deposits in the lens. Dr Goldstein and his colleagues believe that the test could eventually be used to detect Alzheimer's disease at its earliest stages in humans, and that it may also be able to track disease progression and monitor how people respond to treatments.

Early detection leads to early treatment. Let's hope this device works just as well for humans.

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