Most dementias go unnoticed for years because the symptoms are elusive and are only identified until they cause considerable damage to brain tissue.
But a team of researchers from the University of Oxford, England, discovered that if they carried out an analysis sufficiently detailed they could identify the warning signs of early disease.
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| What Are The Signs Of Dementia |
The discovery - published in the journal Neurology - could help doctors to diagnose dementia sooner, which is crucial because the treatments are more effective if they are in the early stages of the disease.
For a period of 20 years, scientists studied a group of 241 healthy elderly volunteers subject to regular tests designed to measure their intellectual and cognitive powers.
When they analyzed the results of the tests, the researchers found subtle key who, in retrospect - say - indicate a subsequent disability.
Language problems
Specifically, patients who developed a mild cognitive disabilities or "pre-dementia" had problems in tasks requiring expression, learning and language learning.
For example, they showed much difficulty to remember the name of common or animal objects and to explain the meaning of a certain word.
And those who were older and had lower scores on tests of memory or language tended to deteriorate more rapidly, say scientists.
Professor David Smith, who led the research, said that their findings confirm what you already know about dementia.
It has shown that in early stages of dementia are associated with language problems, such as difficulty to remember a Word.
The literary works of authors who were diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in later years of his life showed similar changes in the use of language, such as simpler narratives and poor vocabulary.
Early diagnosis
Experts say that these findings may be an important tool to be able to detect early disease.
"This important long-term study shows that subtle but measurable, problems of language or memory can predict when a healthy elderly person is likely to develop mild cognitive disabilities, which often lead to dementia," said Rebecca Wood of the Alzheimer´s Research Trust organization.
"Early intervention will be crucial for future dementia treatments" he adds.
"The ability to detect and measure the initial stages of dementia is a crucial challenge if we want to improve treatments and establish the basis for prevention methods."
It is believed that dementia affects 1 in 20 people over 65-year-old and 1 of every 5 of more than 80. In total, it is estimated that more than 30 million people suffer from the disease worldwide, and it is believed that for the year 2050 the figure can reach more than 100 million.
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