Alzheimer's Disease
Patient Education

Common Tests Or Labs To Diagnose Alzheimer's Disease

Currently there is no particular test that can diagnose early stages of Alzheimer's. A diagnosis is based solely on the symptoms and characteristics provided by the patient. However, a doctor may order the following tests listed in this patient education guide to rule out other conditions and diseases that may be contributing to memory loss.

Severe and late stages of Alzheimer's can be diagnosed by a change in brain size due to the degeneration of cells.

Brain Image Tests

Test	Why Test?	What Happens?	What is Normal/Abnormal?
Computerized Tomography (CT) test	To detect tumors, stokes and head injuries.	X-rays pass through the brain to create cross-sectional images, or slices of brain. Painless test. Takes around 20 minutes to complete.	It provides very detailed images of many types of tissue, bones and blood vessels. So many abnormalities can be detected.
Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) test	Rules out other conditions that may account for cognitive symptoms. Helps detect shrinkage of brain cells in late Alzheimer's stage.	Radioactive waves and strong magnetic field passes through brain to produce detailed image of brain. Painless test. Takes around 1hr to complete	Normal brain Shrinkage of brain Under MRI even soft tissues are visible, more detailed imaging than CT scan. Helps physician to see minute changes in the brain.
Positron Emission Tomography (PET) test	Helps detect brain areas that are not working and the level of plaque in the brain, which is used as an important base to detect Alzheimer's.	Low-level radioactive tracer is injected intravenously (into the Vein) in the arm. Scanner tracks the flow through brain. Takes typically 45min to 1hr.	The findings of PET scan are very limited, as it shows blood flow in to the body. But can be combined with CT scan or MRI scan result for final diagnosis.

Lab Tests

Neurological Tests