Sreemoyee Chatterjee
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Written By: Sreemoyee Chatterjee | Published : October 10, 2018 4:38 PM IST
New AI to detect Alzheimer's disease early © Shutterstock
This is great news for those suffering from Alzheimer's disease as now Canadian scientists have come up with a new Artificial Intelligence (AI) based application that can detect Alzheimer's way long before the symptoms appear, as much as five years prior to the first signs of symptoms. According to experts, this novel method will change the present ways of detecting dementia at an advanced stage and will enable the technology to provide early warning on the condition.
The research was conducted by the University of Toronto and the Centre for Addiction of Mental Health where over 800 people took part. This study appeared in the journal PLOS Computational Biology. The participants were made to take a blood test based on which the data was collected to be analysed by the AI. Also, the MRI scans of some of these participants served to be data basis for AI.
At the moment, there are limited ways to treat Alzheimer s and the best evidence we have is for prevention. Our AI methodology could have significant implications as a doctor s assistant that would help stream people onto the right pathway for treatment. For example, one could even initiate lifestyle changes that may delay the beginning stages of Alzheimer s or even prevent it altogether, said Mallar Chakravarty, the head researcher and a computational neuroscientist at McGill University's Douglas Mental Health University in Montreal.
According to experts, a timely diagnosis of dementia is essentially as it can provide an explanation for symptoms that may have been the cause of worry for your family, an access to treatments to improve symptoms and reduce the progress of the disease, offer advice and support and the time to set up for the future and plan accordingly for treatment.
