Publications by authors named "Drew Holzapfel"
Article Synopsis
- Diagnosing Alzheimer's disease is tough for doctors, which can lead to delays in getting the right care for patients.
- Blood tests that check for signs of Alzheimer's could help doctors find the disease earlier and treat it better, but there are still some big challenges to overcome.
- A special group of leaders in Alzheimer's research is working on solutions, like creating better guidelines, training healthcare workers, and making sure patients understand their test results.
Article Synopsis
- Blood-based biomarkers (BBMs) are new tests that help doctors check for Alzheimer's disease in a simpler and cheaper way than older methods like brain scans or spinal fluid tests.! -
- A special group called the Global CEO Initiative on Alzheimer's Disease is suggesting two ways to use these BBMs: one for initial testing and another to confirm more serious cases.! -
- Using BBMs can make it easier for doctors to diagnose Alzheimer's, which means that patients can start getting needed treatments faster.!
Anti-amyloid treatments for early symptomatic Alzheimer disease have recently become clinically available in some countries, which has greatly increased the need for biomarker confirmation of amyloid pathology. Blood biomarker (BBM) tests for amyloid pathology are more acceptable, accessible and scalable than amyloid PET or cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) tests, but have highly variable levels of performance. The Global CEO Initiative on Alzheimer's Disease convened a BBM Workgroup to consider the minimum acceptable performance of BBM tests for clinical use.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Global estimates on numbers of persons in early stages of Alzheimer's disease (AD), including prodromal and preclinical, are lacking, yet are needed to inform policy decisions on preventive measures and planning for future therapies targeting AD pathology.
Methods: We synthesized the literature on prevalence across the AD continuum and derived a model estimating the number of persons, stratified by 5-year age groups, sex, and disease stage (AD dementia, prodromal AD, and preclinical AD).
Results: The global number of persons with AD dementia, prodromal AD, and preclinical AD were estimated at 32, 69, and 315 million, respectively.