Would you take a test to see if you have Alzheimer’s Disease?
By Kevin Woo, Special to Alzheimer’s Speaks | December 21, 2012
If you had the opportunity to take a test to see if you are at risk for Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia would you? This past April, Avid Radiopharmaceuticals, an Eli Lilly subsidiary, received FDA approval for AMYViD, the first diagnostic PET tracer for estimation of beta-amyloid neuritic plaque density. It is used to evaluate a patient for Alzheimer’s Disease and other forms of cognitive disease.
The test will allow doctors to identify those who are at risk for the disease even before they show symptoms.
The decision to move forward with the test is fraught with complexities. A positive result could complicate family dynamics, lead to discrimination by doctors, employers and insurance companies, or a possible increase in suicide rates.
Dr. Claudia Kawas, a geriatric neurologist at UC Irvine told the Courier-Journal that she recently saw a patient who arrived at her office with two sheets of paper. One was an article about the approval for AMYViD and the other was a last will and testament. Kawas said that the patient vowed to kill himself if the test came back positive.
But the test also has a positive side. In some studies patients who were thought to have Alzheimer’s didn’t and that information allowed doctors to seek other explanations for patients with Alzheimer’s-like symptoms.
The decision is complex. What are your thoughts? Would you take the test?
Leave us your thoughts and join the discussion.
Hello … I’m certainly no role model; for: generally I live with a kind of medieval attitude as: I go see a doctor if I get (whatever) symptoms; as alarm signs they are, I take them seriously. I admit that when I still had a car and used it every day, I did everything I could to prevent it from having issues because of lack of preventing care. In this sense I probably took better care for my car than for myself.
NO, I would not want to know if I had a probability of dementia of whatever type, as long as I don’t and nobody else suspects I show symptoms of cognitive problems. My brain doesn’t process information and doesn’t learns as easily and fast as it did a few decades ago. So what, it doesn’t have to, I’m retired now and just take the time I now have to keep it busy!
My 85 year old Mom clearly shows symptoms as problems with memory, focus, word finding, confusions of time and locations … she’s in good medical care, but she’s not gonna be diagnosed with dementia, especially not of the Alzheimer’s type – because her social environment will not have a problem with her symptoms as long as they’re not labeled with something people so much fear and reject as they currently do. Mom isn’t a fighter. So far I do as much fighting for her as I can, by spreading the message: cognitive symptoms, cognitive disability is not a disease to be treated by pills in the first place. Psychosocial approaches are first choice – and then some philosophical thinking about wouldn’t hurt either; f.e. to question our general conviction that our own perception of “reality” would be the only valid one. At least as a horsewhisperer I learnt that’s not the case 😉 and many other animal species would agree if they could tell us – and so would some quite renowned experts of physics, and they actually do shake our usual views at the world, if we dare to look at their findings.
Tina, from Switzerland
HI Tina
Thanks for giving us such a great example of your mom and the stigmas attached to the disease. Such a good valid point!
Enjoy the holidays
Lori
Check out this video on genetic testing. My friend Eileen Smith’s daughter decided to take it and it steps you through the process beginning to end. Very interesting. Thank you for sharing! Here is the link to the video http://alzheimersspeaks.com/2012/12/21/amyvid/#
Dr. Claudia Kawas, a geriatric neurologist at UC Irvine told the Courier-Journal that she recently saw a patient who arrived at her office with two sheets of paper. One was an article about the approval for AMYViD and the other was a last will and testament. Kawas said that the patient vowed to kill himself if the test came back positive.
Makes one think that is for sure!
Lori