Detecting Alzheimer's Early: Your Words Are Your Clues

Iris Murdoch was one of the few public faces of Alzheimer's disease. Now her words may throw some light on this “dark escort” of a disease, a term her husband poignantly uses in the memoir he wrote for his wife.

It is common knowledge among researchers that Alzheimer's begins its destruction before any signs of the disease is apparent. But just how early does impairment begin and how to spot its earliest signs are questions neuroscientists are grappling with.

This fascinatingly erudite piece of writing focuses on neurology professor, Peter Garrard, who is applying computational linguistics (analyzing text to identify authorship much like how art experts ascertain forgery) to detect early signs of dementia. Language, in other words, can provide a great insight into the onset and development of the disease. Gerrard is sifting through three of Murdoch's novels, written at different times of her life, to analyse when her impairment might have begun.

This makes ample sense. Language comprehension is one of the first things to be affected by the spread of the disease that is now believed to be caused by cell death and tissue loss in the brain. Scientists often say language deterioration is “the hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease”. If computer analysis could indeed help discover the earliest signs of this deterioration, this could well be the biggest boon to researchers desperately looking for a breakthrough. Pinpointing changes in language patterns could be critical for early diagnosis, as well as for developing drugs to halt the disease's progression.

Another facet of the article that found me devouring it is the way it delineates the work of other famous personalities like Agatha Christie (who was not formally diagnosed) and Ronald Reagan in its justification of the embrace of language as a diagnostic tool. More importantly, the article is about hope that a time may come when people can be screened for Alzheimer’s just like they are now for diabetes.