Alzheimer's disease and eye exams

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Happy Friday everyone! It is currently cold and freezing rain, so a far cry from the 60 degree temps we enjoyed on Thursday. Such is life in the mid-west.

I have been aware of this for the last couple of years but an article hit USA Today on January 6th so I thought it would be good to discuss it briefly. First, just a little basic anatomy.  The retina is a direct extension of your brain. It is not an exaggeration to say we are looking at your brain when we look into your eye at the back of the eye where the retina is. It is obviously much easier and less expensive to look into the eye than look at your brain via an MRI or PET scan which can cost thousands of dollars.

Research is being done with a retinal scanning device called an OCT that would be able to pick up early changes in the retina consistent with the plaques that form in the brain with Alzheimer's disease. Imagine being able to run a simple, inexpensive (a couple hundred dollars) scan and determine if there is disease.

My personal opinion on this is that we will see this technology available in the years to come. We have a state of the art OCT at the office already and I would imagine it would be a software upgrade to the unit to run these scans. Time will tell of course, but I continue to be amazed at what we are able to see by looking into our patients eyes.


Dr. Jason

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