Mild Cognitive Impairment Targets Elderly: Study

Doctors have recently discovered a sudden rise in a cognitive disorder in men wherein they are subject to a kind of mental deterioration!

A less severe form of mental decline that generally precede Alzheimer's disease is found more in men than in women.

A study conducted by Mayo Clinic on Minnesota residents shows that at least a million Americans experience this milder form of the cognitive disorder in old age every year.

Those who are victims of mild impairment have weak memory. Lead scientist of the Mayo study, Dr. Ronald Petersen said, "We're seeing that in fact there's a much larger burgeoning problem out there.”

Dr. Ralph Nixon, a New York University psychiatrist and scientific adviser to the Alzheimer's Association describe it as a situation of disaster. "We're facing a crisis," he said.

"This is a very large and important issue for our country and for the world," commented Duke University psychologist Brenda Plassman.

Petersen defined mild cognitive impairment or MCI as a junction between dementia and aging 9in a normal healthy way). It is not as dangerous or severe like dementia in which the patient suffers from confusion, inattention or trouble putting thoughts into words, this pre-dementia disorder is milder damage of brain cells that makes the patients forget little little details in and about daily life.

And the worst part is that once the problem initiates nothing can be done to stop it. The mental damage is irreversible process due to lack of effective treatments at our disposal today.

In a study, researchers experimented with a nose spray on the patients and the results were a bit encouraging, the nose spray helped in halting the deterioration process. This seems to provide a ray of hope to the patients and the doctors as well.

A drug manufactured by Allon Therapeutics Inc., based in Vancouver, B.C, known as AL-108 is deliberated to be a drug that can provide some relief to mildly impaired people, but as of now it needs to be tested to large number of people over a longer span of time.

This gives a prospective for a new genre of medicine that have the capacity to regulate the proteins which destroy the brain cells and nerve cells, a process that leads to development of pre-dementia stage.

And no data is available on "pre-dementia" as opposed to the data regarding Alzheimer's diseases.

But scientists do believe that those who are victims of MCI have complete risk of developing full-blown dementia.