Journal of Medical Physics and Applied Sciences

The Potential of Infrared Spectroscopy and Multivariate Analysis of Peripheral Blood Components as a Validated Clinical Test for Early Diagnosis of Alzheimer's Disease

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is usually considered as an aging disease as the Greek and Roman physician used to consider, and as the main cause of dementia. AD patients start to do mistakes in language, to lost direction, changes in mood, selfcareless until losing their emotional and body functions until death [1]. The symptoms of the disease are getting worse by time. AD was first diagnosed in 1901 by psychiatrist Alois Alzheimer (thus this dementia acquired his name) and till now its causes are not yet known and there is no validated clinical test for diagnosis [2] especially at early stages. According to the statistics in 2015, there is about 48 million persons worldwide diseased with AD [3]. In 2010, 486,000 deaths resulted from dementia. As life expectation increases in developed countries and AD is mainly an aging disease it becomes financially very costly disease [4]. While the death due to other diseases has been decreased, the deaths related to AD are increasing; for example the deaths due to AD in the years 2000 and 2008 have increases by 66%. The economic burden due to AD is very high making it a major medical challenge; the cost of the disease in the USA alone in 2015 was $226 billion and it is in the upward trend [5].

Author(s):

Salman A and Mordechai S

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