Much better diagnosed with Alzheimer’s

Viagra, video games to slow the progression of a neurodegenerative disease … not a week without talking about it. Development by Prof. Salmon.

Your relative has just been diagnosed: Parkinson’s, frontotemporal dementia, Lewy body dementia … words which in any case mean that the state of the brain is degenerating. After all, what is the point of having a name on a disease?

Prof. Salmon, neurologist in charge of the memory clinic at CHU de Liège, explains that neurodegenerative diseases are not all “dementias”, like frontotemporal dementia, lewy’s body dementia …

There are 5 cases of Parkinson’s in 10,000 people

“There are extrapyramidal syndromes, where we find Parkinson’s disease, and other more specific diseases such as cortico-basal degeneration (Editor’s note causing asymmetric motor dysfunction and cognitive impairment), progressive supranuclear palsy (Editor’s note impaired eyeball control, postural instability, progressive stiffness, and discrete cognitive decline), Hutington’s disease (Editor’s note: involuntary movements, behavioral disorders, psychiatric disorders). “

Frontotemporal dementia affects 3.9 out of 100,000 people between the ages of 50-59 and 9.4 between the ages of 60-69 “

There are many different conditions. Knowing what exactly it is is all the more important as the treatments differ.

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common – 1 in 20 in people aged 65 and over. 1 in 5 after 85 years

Clinical diagnosis

Clinical diagnosis has improved significantly, as we are more precise on the hallmarks.

“ Cognitive tests are reliable. We constantly improve our research to aim for the best: they must be able to detect diseases and not be abnormal in people who have nothing. We cannot be satisfied with a simplified Google test, we need a complete evaluation, carried out by specially trained people.“

And in addition to cognitive tests, we are developing behavioral tests “,because people can have a good memory and use it completely wrong in social interactions. “

Medical imaging and biomarkers

“ MRI examinations show that when this or that region is affected, it is rather that type of pathology», Says Prof. Salmon.

But biomarkers have been used more and more in recent years. “Huntington’s disease is characterized by a genetic defect. “For Alzheimer’s disease before, only brain examination after death showed amyloid deposits and tau protein deposits with neurofilaments and neurofibrillary tangles.”Now, we can see it during the individual’s life, thanks to a lumbar puncture or PET scan. “

This is important, because there are antibodies that lower the level of amyloid in the brain “the least you can do is know that there are amyloid deposits in the brain before testing the antibody treatment. “

Huntington is not the only neurodegenerative disease of genetic origin, so are some familiar Alzheimers “,and in the case of frontotemporal dementia, many different mutations have also been described. “But these genetic markers raise ethical questions”Sometimes we wonder if we should give the diagnosis to a person, in the preclinical stage, or if it will stress him too much for his life?”

The question of an early and precise diagnosis is however very important, especially since the treatment of hypertension reduces the risk of Alzheimer’s, as cholinergic drugs, which are administered at the beginning of Alzheimer’s disease, are contraindicated in frontotemporal dementias, as aggravate behavioral disturbances. Diagnosis is more essential than ever.