New Eye Test Could Detect Early Signs of Alzheimer’s
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Professor Peter van Wijngaarden
Peter van Wijngaarden, MBBS, PhD, FRANZCO is a Principal Investigator at the Centre for Eye Research Australia (CERA) and an Associate Professor of Ophthalmology at the University of Melbourne Department of Surgery. He is a Deputy Director of CERA and an ophthalmologist in the medical retina clinic at the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital. Peter completed his PhD in the field of retinal vascular biology at Flinders University and his post-doctoral fellowship in regeneration of the central nervous system in multiple sclerosis, at the University of Cambridge, UK. Peter’s research is focused on novel imaging technologies to detect early markers of eye and central nervous system diseases, with a focus on Alzheimer’s disease. He is grateful for the support of the Yulgilbar Alzheimer’s Research Program, the Pratt Foundation, the H& L Hecht Trust, the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation, the Sylvia and Charles Viertel Charitable Foundation, the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation Eldon & Anne Foote Grant and the National Foundation for Medical Research and Innovation.
I was diagnosed with cataracts and glaucoma just weeks before my dementia diagnosis. Is this related.
No Diane. This research scans only the retina because it is known to reflect certain brain diseases.
Is all. Dementia ((loss of memory) labeled Alzheimer’s?
Is all. Dementia ((loss of memory) labeled Alzheimer’s?
No Liz. Dementia is brain failure. The most common single cause, accounting for about 60% of all cases, is Alzheimer’s. The most common early symptom of Alzheimer’s is short term memory loss.
But the many other diseases and conditions causing dementia produce different early symptoms. The second most common cause of dementia is fronto-temporal lobar degeneration (“FTD”) for which the earliest symptoms are uninhibited behaviours or word-finding deficiencies.