A 25-minute test is being developed in Tasmania that will detect early signs of dementia 10 to 20 years before it develops into full-blown memory loss and lack of judgment.
Dr Jane Alty (pictured above), a Senior Lecturer in Neurology at the University of Tasmania’s Wicking Dementia Research and Education Centre and a Neurologist at the Royal Hobart Hospital, is the brainchild of the “Tas Test”, which provides data informing people of their risk of developing dementia and provide the opportunity to modify behaviour.
“The test could potentially transform dementia prevention and management worldwide as it will identify ‘high-risk’ individuals for drug trials and preventive interventions at a stage when the brain is still functioning well,” Dr Alty told the Mercury.
“Approximately 40 per cent of all dementia could be prevented if these risk factors are addressed but currently we have no population screening tests for brain health to identify who requires intense risk-factor modification – until they start to develop memory problems about 20 years after the dementia pathology first started progressing silently in the brain.”
Dr Alty is recruiting people aged over 50 from two projects at the Wicking Dementia Research and Education Centre. at the University of Tasmania – the ISLAND Project and the Tasmanian Healthy Brain Project.
The TAS Test project was awarded $899,782 in National Health and Medical Research Council funding over five years.
