Losing your sense of direction in middle age could be an early sign of Alzheimer's disease.
Losing your sense of direction is a tell-tale sign of Alzheimer's
Researchers have discovered that adults at risk of dementia due to genetic and lifestyle factors had reduced spacial navigation up to 25 years before diagnosis and are convinced that testing a person's ability to get around using virtual reality could lead to a transformative early diagnosis of the degenerative condition.
Dr. Coco Newton, an expert at University College London, said: "Our results indicated that this type of navigation behaviour change might represent the very earliest diagnostic signal in Alzheimer's disease.
"We are now taking these findings forward to develop a diagnostic clinical decision support tool for the NHS in the coming years, which is a completely new way of approaching diagnostics and will hopefully help people to get a more timely and accurate diagnosis."