Studying Alzheimer's With Motion Sensors

Project Tracks Movement Of Elderly In Their Homes, Looking For Signs Of Slowing Brain Activity

(AP)  Tiny motion sensors are attached to the walls, doorways and even the refrigerator of Elaine Bloomquist's home, tracking the seemingly healthy 86-year-old's daily activity.

It's like spying in the name of science — with her permission — to see if round-the-clock tracking of elderly people's movements can provide early clues of impending Alzheimer's disease.

"Now it takes years to determine if someone's developing dementia," laments Dr. Jeffrey Kaye of Oregon Health & Science University, which is placing the monitors in 300 homes of octogenarians as part of a $7 million U.S. government funded project.

The goal: Shave off that time by spotting subtle changes in mobility and behavior that Alzheimer's specialists are convinced precede the disease's telltale memory loss.

Early predictors may be as simple as variations in speed while people walk their hallways, or getting slower at dressing or typing. Also under study are in-home interactive "kiosks" that administer monthly memory and cognition tests, computer keyboards bugged to track typing speed, and pill boxes that record when seniors forget to take their medicines.

More than 5 million Americans, and 26 million people worldwide, have Alzheimer's, and cases are projected to skyrocket as the population ages. Today's medications only temporarily alleviate symptoms. Researchers are desperately hunting new ones that might at least slow the relentless brain decay if taken very early in the disease, before serious memory problems become obvious.

So dozens of early diagnosis methods also are under study, from tests of blood and spinal fluid to MRI scans of people's brains. Even if some pan out, they're expensive tests that would require lots of doctor intervention, when getting someone to visit a physician for suspicion of dementia is a huge hurdle. And during routine checkups, even doctors easily can miss the signs.

[mjm117]

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[redcheva]

If they're going to do a study that is really worthwhile, they should start when a person is in their 50's. I am not a scientist but I have always believed that Alzheimer's disease does not come to a person all of a sudden when they are in their 70's or 80's. I believe that it really starts when a person is still "young" (40's, 50's)and it slowly progresses as the person gets older. I also believe that the lack of connection between brain nerve cells (the electrical link between cells--that which allows for the transference of information from one cell to the next) occurs so gradually that it goes unnoticed until much later in life--when the degeneration has set in. If they could study the liquid that surrounds these cells and find the why the connectivity diminishes, then they might find a way to reverse the process. I trully believe that it has to do with a person's way of thinking and personal habits (what he eats, how he sleeps, how he reacts to different stimuli, etc). Start the study early and keep with the same subject/s for at least 2 decades and you may get somewhere.