London: Reseachers have recently developed a new simple test that could facilitate detect the early symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease and help cut the risk of developing the disease.
Experts said the free 15-20 minute online test should be taken by all over-50s, which was available from today (TUES) can both assess a person’s chance of getting the deadly brain condition from middle age and give personalised advice on steps to take to cut their risk.
Professor David Smith from Oxford University, said that not only does the test give people positive prevention steps to reduce risk in the long-term but also there’s an annual checkup so people could track how diet and lifestyle changes impact on their cognitive function.
Professor Smith hopes the results of hundreds of thousands of people doing the test would provide vital information to help develop a national prevention strategy.
There are still no drug treatments for Alzheimer’s and none in the pipeline. This means that currently the only way to combat the disease is by reducing risk through lifestyle changes.
There are also 37 questions about diet and lifestyle which also assess a person’s most-likely risk factors and the kind of specific changes they need to make to reverse that risk.
The Cognitive Function Test can be done on any computer or laptop, but not on a mobile or smart phone.