One of the most important things to consider in medical practices is the right diagnosis when it comes to the health situation of a patient. Determining the correct and real situation of a patient is crucial especially in order to accurately be able to give the medications and the treatment that he or she needs.
Unfortunately, some people diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease might have been misdiagnosed all these years, experts say. That is after scientists have recently identified a new type of brain degeneration that shows almost the same symptoms with the latter, as reported by TIME.
"Not everything that looks like Alzheimer's disease is Alzheimer's disease," said Dr. Julie Schneider, a neuropathologist at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. She also added that as compared to other types of dementia, the newly discovered kind is the most that resemble Alzheimer's disease perfectly.
The newly discovered type of dementia was dubbed "LATE," which is an abbreviation for Limbic-predominant Age-related TDP-43 Encephalopathy. It was named as such since older seniors, people who are more than 80 years old, are much prone to the disease as compared to those who are younger than them.
LATE was discovered after scientist were able to develop special scans, able to measure the abnormal build-up of amyloid protein in the brain. With this new device, experts were able to determine, measure, and understand more about the patient's brain and everything in it.
It was then when these scientists found out that a third of the people who they've examined, which were pre-diagnosed with Alzheimer's lack these amyloid build-ups. This is the only thing that people who are suffering from Alzheimer's and those who are suffering from this new type of dementia differ. Aside from that, their symptoms are most likely the same.
Also, researchers found another toxin protein, which could cause more harm in the brain in the future. This protein was named TDP-43 and could be linked to severe shrinkage of the brain's hippocampus. This horseshoe-like part of the brain is essential especially when it comes to learning and memory, as explained by Brain Made Simple.
Meanwhile, it is still unclear how many persons have this disease as of the writing. Furthermore, experts are still unsure of whether or not the number of people suffering from this disease is already alarming or not. But one thing is certain, Dr. Peter Nelson of the University of Kentucky, the paper's lead author, states that the number of those who probably have the disease could be huge.
