MRI may help doctors differentiate causes of memory loss

A UCLA-led study has found that MRI scans can help doctors distinguish whether a person ’s memory loss is being caused by Alzheimer’s disease or by traumatic brain injury.The study, which also involved researchers at Washington University in St. Louis, is important because it could help prevent doctors from misdiagnosing Alzheimer ’s disease — a diagnosis that can be devastating for patients and their families, and can prevent them from receiving appropriate treatment. (A 2016 study by researchers affiliated with the University of Toronto found that up to 21 percent of older adults with dementia may be misdiagnosed with Alzheimer ’s.)The current study, published in the Journal of Alzheimer ’s disease, involved 40 patients whose average age was just under 68 and who were being treated by UCLA neurologists. All of the patients had suffered traumatic brain injury and later developed memory problems.“We already knew that MRIs can reveal subtle abnormalities in patients with neurological disorders, such as Alzheimer’s,” said Dr. Somayeh Meysami, the study’s lead author and a postdoctoral clinical research fellow in cognitive and behavioral neurology at theDavid Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. “The purpose of our study was to evaluate whether MRI also could reveal distinct abnormalities in traumatic brain injury. And, if we could identify such a pattern, it would lead to improved diagnosis of TBI-related memory loss from other causes of dementia.”Using a ...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news