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 warning signs of the disease could be spotted almost twelve years before dementia started.
These first signs are, about ten years before the illness, depressive feelings or memory problems. Six years before the disease broke out, this time it was difficulties that appeared in the subjects to carry out certain complex tasks, such as traveling 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 which 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.
