Having difficulties reading, calculating distances, and reaching objects are some of the symptoms to detect Alzheimer’s. The eyes are more than a window to the soul, they are also a reflection of a person’s cognitive health. According to various research, the eye can help diagnose Alzheimer’s disease before symptoms begin. The disease is in a very advanced stage when it begins to affect memory and behavior.
The First Signs of Alzheimer’s Could Appear in the Eyes
A team of international researchers, led by the University of California, San Francisco, has completed the first large-scale study of posterior cortical atrophy (PCA), a bewildering constellation of visuospatial symptoms responsible for our understanding of the space around us and we can move within it, which appear as the first symptoms of Alzheimer’s. These symptoms occur in up to 10% of cases of this neurodegenerative disease.
During the research, it was found that posterior cortical atrophy overwhelmingly predicts Alzheimer’s disease. About 94% of patients with PCA had Alzheimer’s disease and the remaining 6% suffered from conditions such as Lewy body disease and frontotemporal lobe degeneration. In contrast, other studies show that 70% of patients with memory loss have Alzheimer’s.
Unlike memory problems, patients with PCA have difficulty judging distances, distinguishing between moving and stationary objects, and completing tasks such as writing and retrieving a dropped object despite a normal eye exam. From a scientific point of view, we can then say that we need to understand why Alzheimer’s specifically targets the visual areas of the brain rather than the memory areas.
This story was written in Spanish by Perla Vallejo in Ecoosfera.
