Alzheimer's patients vulnerable to acquired brain injury?RSS Feed

People in the early stages of Alzheimer's are more prone to falling, researchers found, indicating that they could be at a higher risk of spinal injury.

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis revealed that falls and balance problems could be early predictors of Alzheimer's disease.

Two-thirds of those with higher levels of amyloid plaques in the brain, indicating early Alzheimer's, fell in the first eight months of the study.

This compares to the one-third of the general population of over-65s which typically experiences a fall each year.

 Lead author Susan Stark explained: "If you meet these people on the street, they appear healthy and have no obvious cognitive problems.

"But they have changes in their brain that look similar to Alzheimer’s disease, and they have twice the typical annual rate of falls for their age group."

In other news, Alzheimer's rates could be halved worldwide through changes to diet and lifestyle, according to a University of California San Francisco study.

News brought to you by Serious Law specialists in spinal injury

Posted by Paul Breen
 

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