(Angela Mulholland/ CTV News) — Canadian researchers say they may soon be able to easily identify adults who are on the path to Alzheimer’s disease, using a tool that works in a similar way to a pediatrician’s growth charts.
The tool, called the QuoCo (a play on the term “cognitive quotient”), allows doctors to test the memory or cognitive performance of any patient and then plot changes over time, to see if those changes fit within the normal range.
“It allows you to track the performance of an individual over time to see if that individual is following the normal cognitive decline associated with normal aging,” neurologist Dr. Robert Laforce Jr. explained to CTV’s Your Morning Monday.
Dr. Laforce said he and his team at the Université Laval helped establish a range of what constitutes “normal cognitive decline” by following 8,000 healthy individuals and tracking their performance using a well-established dementia screening tool called the MMSE, or Mini Mental State Examination. (…)