People who develop dementia as they age most often have a mixed type, Elizabeth Tracey reports

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You may have heard of a new blood test for Alzheimer’s disease just approved by the FDA. Abhay Moghakar, a neurologist and blood biomarkers expert at Johns Hopkins, says even if you are older and have symptoms of the disease, that doesn’t point directly to Alzheimer’s. 

Moghakar: Just because you have Alzheimer's disease pathology you cannot jump to the conclusion that's 100% contributing to your cognitive impairment and that's again why you need a clinician to judge what's the contribution of Alzheimer's, but yes, what could be the potential contribution of vascular disease? Those are in fact easily preventable. We shouldn't be too Alzheimer's centric either.  :21

Moghekar says the new test may help pave the way toward earlier intervention as effective methods are developed.

 Moghakar: I'm more likely to prevent the disease rather than to cure the disease once it's already set in so these biomarkers are actually very important because they're helping us detect the disease before the clinical manifestations.   :11

At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.