The Suburban - JGH moving forward on Alzheimer's

Researchers at the Jewish General Hospital say they’re getting closer to finding out what causes Alzheimer’s disease and finding better ways to obtain a more accurate diagnosis. The findings were unveiled last week at the JGH’s Lady Davis Institute for Medical research (LDI).

Dr. Howard Chertkow, director of the Bloomfield Centre for Research in Aging at the LDI, is excited that so much progress is being made here in Montreal.

The question is, he said, “can we make the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s earlier? The therapies will be much more effective if diagnosed early.” Chertkow is optimistic that positron emission technology (PET) scans will be an important tool in finding the degenerative neurological disease before symptoms even occur.

Along with colleagues at the Montreal Neurological Institute, JGH researchers have become the first in Canada to “successfully test the new diagnostic procedure.”