Alzheimer's: These psychiatric symptoms may be an early sign

By the time that the symptoms of dementia emerge in Alzheimer's disease, tissue damage is well underway in the brain. Now, scientists propose that specific psychiatric symptoms – such as depression, anxiety, sleep disruption, and loss of appetite – may serve as markers of very early brain changes in Alzheimer's.

 

Working with the Brazilian Biobank for Aging Studies (BBAS) at the University of São Paulo, investigators at the University of California in San Francisco (UCSF) studied results of postmortem brain tissue tests and compared them with psychiatric symptoms obtained from detailed interviews conducted with people who knew the deceased well, such as relatives and carers.

They suggest that their study — a paper on which now features in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease — reveals that psychiatric symptoms are not the cause of Alzheimer's, but more likely early indicators of the disease.

Such markers could help doctors to diagnose Alzheimer's disease much earlier and thus increase opportunities for slowing its progress, they note.

 

The authors also propose that the findings could alter our understanding of how the biology of Alzheimer's leads to psychiatric symptoms in people who develop the disease.

"The discovery," says senior study author Dr. Lea T. Grinberg, who is a principal investigator and associate professor in neurology at UCSF, "that the biological basis for these symptoms is the early Alzheimer's pathology itself was quite surprising."

"It suggests these people with neuropsychiatric symptoms are not at risk of developing Alzheimer's disease — they already have it," she explains.

There are around 5.7 million people with Alzheimer's disease living in the United States. This figure is likely to reach almost 14 million by 2050.

If doctors could diagnose the disease more accurately, and earlier, it could save the nation trillions of dollars in care and medical costs.

Alzheimer's is the leading cause of dementia and has some specific biological features. The main hallmarks are two types of abnormal proteins found inside and around the brain cells in people who have died with the disease.

The abnormal proteins found inside the brain cells are known as tau tangles and the ones found between the cells are called beta-amyloid plaques.