Alzheimer's Blood Test !

The news that a consortium of Australian and Japanese scientists have developed a blood test that may warn of the inevitability of Dementia developing thirty years into the future may not be good news for many people.   We welcome early detection of disease when that brings the prospect of a cure, but at this stage Alzheimer's is virtually a death sentence.

Apparently this blood test uses a highly specialised mass spectrometry technique to measure the low concentrations of a peptide in the blood samples and this reliably predicts that the patient will develop a Dementia disease such as Alzheimer's, perhaps thirty years into the future.

This test may be a help to laboratories seeking to develop a cure for Dementia.  At this stage it is blamed on an unusual protein build-up in the brain but as time passes the disease develops from mild forgetfulness to the full ravages of a return to childhood, with incontinence and total memory loss. Sufferers often have no memory of their former life and do not recognise their own spouse or children.

The problem is that once this test is added to the technique available to the medical profession in evaluating their patients it can quickly assume a threat for which it was not intended.   A multinational company reviewing a short list of candidates for CEO appointment might demand they all be subjected to this test as part of that selection process.  They would certainly hesitate to place the wealth of a company and the jobs of thousands of people into the care of a person whose analysis and decision making will have a certain impairment factor because of inevitable Dementia.

Even hiring a young man or woman at the start of their career will involve a long training regimen and expense which an employer would hope may be repaid by retaining their services by progress along the management chain.  Often such a selection involves a medical examination and it would be tempting to include that Dementia test in the specification.

Clarifying one of life's mysteries can even intrude into the process of selecting one's life partner.  We have long entered the realm of the two income family and those intending to have children could insist on this test to ensure that both are capable of sustaining the needs that lay ahead.  The nuclear family involves a high load of debt and the wise would ensure that this is sustainable by both partners continuing in good health.

Selecting a career path starts these days towards the end of the school system and should a student learn that they must eventually suffer Dementia that can drastically alter their attitude to life.  It would certainly diminish enthusiasm to begin the gruelling grind that is a necessity for most professional careers and may end the prospect of that person starting their own business.   Some may argue that if life is going to end in Dementia, riding the surf waves is a more fulfilling career choice.

The problem is that whatever is invented - can not be uninvented.   A reliable Dementia diagnostic tool is fast becoming a reality and once it passes into the blood analysis system it is no longer under the control of the individual patient.

Perhaps there are some areas of the future that are better to be unknown !