To reach this conclusion, the team followed for fourteen years a group of more than 3,750 people aged 65 and over, a group in which 350 individuals developed Alzheimer’s disease during the observation period.
By tracing backwards the tests carried out on this group of 350 people over fourteen years, the researchers showed that early signs of the disease could be spotted almost twelve years before the onset of dementia.
These first signs are, ten years before the disease, depressive feelings or memory problems. Six years before the disease broke out, it was this time that the subjects experienced difficulties in carrying out certain complex tasks, such as getting around in transport, managing their money or even following their drug treatment.
These warning signs pave the way for an earlier diagnosis of the disease, a diagnosis that could emerge within two to three years. This diagnosis would also make it possible to implement treatments upstream of the first advanced signs of dementia.
