How to tactfully ask parents to test for Alzheimer's disease? "Similar questions are not uncommon on Zhihu and Xiaohongshu. September 21st is World Alzheimer's Day. Despite the maturity of various methods such as in-hospital testing, blood testing, and genetic screening, early screening and diagnosis are still common challenges faced by patients and their children. According to Tmall Health, early screening services such as Alzheimer's disease genetic testing and multi indicator blood testing have been launched on the Tmall platform. Currently, nearly 70% of testing services are ordered by children.
It is not uncommon for patients to interrupt their family members who are explaining their condition and refuse to admit that they are sick in outpatient clinics for Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients.
In most cases, patients are even unwilling to take the first step and refuse to go to the hospital for examination. Led by Renji Hospital affiliated with Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, and organized by experts and scholars from authoritative institutions such as the Chronic Non communicable Disease Prevention and Control Center of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the School of Public Health of Fudan University, the Shanghai Mental Health Center, Ruijin Hospital affiliated with Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, and Fujian Medical University, the "China Alzheimer's Disease Report 2024" shows that there are currently 16.99 million patients with Alzheimer's disease and other dementia in China. There are approximately 38 million people with mild cognitive impairment. Another survey report shows that the overall awareness rate of Alzheimer's disease among the population in China exceeds 90%, but the proactive seeking rate is only over 10%.
In the early stages, there may only be slight cognitive decline, and some symptoms are easily overlooked or mistaken for normal aging. Patients often seek medical attention only when obvious symptoms appear, which also misses the best intervention opportunity, "said Fan Hu, a small assistant in the Tmall health testing industry.
With the maturity of blood testing and genetic testing technologies, home self inspection without leaving home has become one of the main ways for many patients and their families to screen for Alzheimer's disease in the early stage. Compared to in-hospital PET-CT, MRI, and cerebrospinal fluid testing, blood tests and oral swabs are more widely accepted for patients, especially elderly patients Fan Hu stated that currently, there are two main forms of home testing for Alzheimer's disease: "The first type of genetic testing uses' oral swabs' to perform typing tests on the identified pathogenic gene APOE, predicting the risk of disease; the second type is multi indicator blood testing, which adds testing for six items including β - amyloid protein 1-40 (A β 1-40), β - amyloid protein 1-42 (A β 1-42), phosphorylated Tau181 protein (p-Tau181), and glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) in the blood based on APOE genetic testing. The cost of the two tests ranges from 500 yuan to 1100 yuan
At present, the mainstream consumer group for Alzheimer's disease risk gene home testing is middle-aged and elderly people with a family history or showing early symptoms, as well as children who purchase such testing services for their parents, "said Tan Xuemei, product manager of BGI Genomics.
In the past, Alzheimer's disease in China faced the main dilemma of "one high, three low", namely high prevalence, low awareness, low diagnosis rate, and low treatment rate. But with the development of social media, young people's understanding of diseases has gradually become clearer, and they have begun to value the health of their elders.
Considering the elderly's resistance to 'going to the hospital', some children choose home testing for early screening, "said Tan Xuemei, product manager of BGI Genomics." After retiring, Ms. Cheng's father's mental state was greatly reduced. When he met a familiar colleague, he couldn't remember his name, and when he searched for something in his daily life, he couldn't react and kept saying 'that one or that one'. Ms. Cheng consulted and purchased Alzheimer's disease risk genetic testing on Tmall, and guided her father to take swabs at home. Unexpectedly, her father didn't resist at all, and Ms. Cheng felt relieved
The method of home testing is certainly friendly to the elderly, but there are still some elderly people who are worried that detecting high risks will not help and will only increase their psychological burden. It is better not to test at all.
Tan Xuemei believes that while promoting early diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease, it is also necessary to provide psychological support and health management guidance for patients, such as providing psychological counseling services before and after testing to help users correctly understand the test results and reduce psychological pressure; Based on the test results, develop personalized health management plans for high-risk individuals, including lifestyle adjustments, cognitive training, and regular follow-up. These comprehensive measures will help gradually increase public awareness of early detection of Alzheimer's disease, promote early diagnosis and intervention, thereby delaying disease progression and improving patients' quality of life.