visuospatial skills decline three years before Alzheimer's

HealthDay reported that, according to a study published in the Oct. issue of the Archives of Neurology, the ability to perceive relationships between objects (visuospatial skills) may decline years before a person is diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. In a study population of 444 people, researchers from the University of Kansas used data from "cognitive assessments" to chart declines in various areas before participants were diagnosed with dementia. They found an inflection point (sudden change to a steeper slope of decline) in visuospatial abilities three years before clinical diagnosis of dementia. After that, "declines in overall cognition occurred the next year, while inflection points for verbal and working memory weren't seen until one year before diagnosis."

The UK's Telegraph quotes the authors as saying that "research into early detection of cognitive disorders using only episodic memory tasks, such as word lists or paragraph recall, may not be sensitive to either all of the earliest manifestations of disease or the most rapidly changing domain.

Posted in: Alzheimer, Alzheimer's disease, Archives of Neurology, Cognition, Dementia, Health, Research, University of Kansas