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987nevertry t1_j1xgs3k wrote

If, in the future, I am going to have an incurable deadly disease for which there is no treatment, I think the quality of my life is better without this knowledge.

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wetgear t1_j1xvsfz wrote

You'll eventually know either way, at least you get to plan ahead more with an earlier diagnosis minimizing the potential for hurting yourself or others. That's not the main point though, this can be used to check if treatments are working at slowing the disease or not.

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987nevertry t1_j1xxwv8 wrote

I dunno. From my experience with my mother I would say that the effects of the disease begin to render themselves apparent in plenty of time for all appropriate arrangements to be made.

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lotsofsyrup t1_j1ybv55 wrote

The point is right now the doctor has to just guess whether it's Alzheimer's or something else unless they can do expensive imaging tests and a spinal tap with expensive testing on the spinal fluid at a reference lab. An antibody test on blood would be way cheaper and easier to do at scale and allow earlier and more confident treatment to more people. This will become more important as treatment improves over time (hopefully).

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Jazzlike-Emu-9235 t1_j1yzni5 wrote

Many people go "dementia they must have Alzheimer's" while that's pretty commonly true it isn't how it works. Dementia is merely a symptom but dementia has many other causes. It can be beneficial to make sure the symptoms are from Alzheimer's and not something else to ensure proper treatment. Plus I see this as one more step to understanding Alzheimer's since we scarily don't really know much yet it's about 1 in 5 will get it depending on how long they live and such. If we can understand the disease we can find better ways to treat it since treatment currently doesn't really do anything. The scary thing about Alzheimer's too is that for treatment to really make a difference on someone's life you need to start it as soon as the disease starts which is decades before others observe it's happening. We only realize the person has Alzheimer's when it's in a progressed state. In reality the disease probably started as early as their 30s and 40s and people just thought "you start forgetting as you age" which is true but it's also an early sign of the disease. So for me I know Alzheimer's runs in my family. Almost all of my grandmas 16 siblings got Alzheimer's. If I can get tested every other year starting at 30 or when I start noticing a decline in my memory I can get the treatment we currently have and prolong how long it'll be until the symptoms affect my every day life.

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wetgear t1_j1yxadu wrote

It's good that your mother had the support structure of other folks to notice the changes, not everyone is so lucky.

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fartbox_mcgilicudy t1_j1xywhj wrote

Think of it this way, if we come up with a drug that we think helps limit the effects of alzheimers then we can test it on those who we know will have alzheimers. Over time we will have our answer clearly. That's huge in the scientific world. To have an actual population that we know will have the disease as opposed to just guessing in the dark is very important. We are finally limiting error in testing in this terrible disease.

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ellipsisslipsin t1_j20ltd1 wrote

There are actually some medications that can slow down the progress/help maintain a certain level of cognitive functioning for longer. So early diagnosis is actually really important. If you have early onset Alzheimer's, it may not make that much of a difference, but, let's say you're 80 when you start to show symptoms, depending on how physically healthy you are there's a chance that starting meds right away could delay the worst effects until after you die a natural death.

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