Early Diagnosis of Alzheimer Disease

        In the article, “Alzheimer disease in African American individuals: increased incidence or not enough data?,” there is a viewpoint on the idea that Alzheimer disease is more prevalent in individuals with an African American background. African Americans usually perform lower on tests than others. Additionally, they are twice as likely to be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s than those of white origin are. In this study, individuals are compared over years for better results and data rather than comparing them to other populations. However, in her article, Barnes shows that there are no race differences in cognitive rates as these rates decline with Alzheimer disease, regardless of race. This decline over time is constant and is portrayed in other races as well. There are large differences in Alzheimer’s disease among races as well as test performance, in which other races tend to perform better than the African American race. It is also important to consider the different risks that can either increase or decrease risk for the disease. For example, other factors such as diabetes, hypertension, depression, smoking can all increase risk for Alzheimer disease. On the other hand, factors such as physical activity, diet, cognitive activity, and education contribute to a decreased risk for the disease.

        In a journal called “A 5-min Cognitive Task With Deep Learning Accurately Detects Early Alzheimer’s Disease” shows the effects of a simple task on showing proof of Alzheimer’s disease. A simple task is administered on eight individuals with mild Alzheimer’s disease. Almubark argues that traditional machine learning showed similar approaches with cognitive data. When using and analyzing scores from both the cognitive task and neuropsychological data, there is evidence of a high level of sensitivity and specificity. Overall, it is shown that a deep sense of learning in simple cognitive tasks shows early diagnosis for Alzheimer disease. This study should be repeated in the future with a larger sample to demonstrate a better validation of the results. 

Almubark, Ibrahim, et al. “A 5-Min Cognitive Task with Deep Learning Accurately Detects Early Alzheimer's Disease.” Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, vol. 12, 2020, https://doi.org/10.3389/fnagi.2020.603179. 

Barnes, Lisa L. “Alzheimer Disease in African American Individuals: Increased Incidence or Not Enough Data?” Nature Reviews Neurology, vol. 18, no. 1, 2021, pp. 56–62., https://doi.org/10.1038/s41582-021-00589-3.