UK commits £80 million to accelerate dementia diagnosis

Oct 2 (Reuters) – The UK’s national research agency is backing a plan to speed up dementia testing with up to £80 million ($105.48 million) in funding, to improve diagnosis rates and cut waiting times that can exceed a year.

Here are more details:

• UK Research and Innovation, or UKRI, said on Friday nine new technologies — including faster brain scans, blood tests and a 15-minute remote cognitive test — will be trialled in the National Health Service.

• The project aims to diagnose 92% of patients within 18 weeks of referral, up from about 60% now.

• One of the projects seeks to shorten MRI brain scans to about seven minutes from around 20, which would allow more patients to be scanned and lower costs, UKRI said.

• Other projects include an artificial intelligence tool to predict how the disease will progress, digital tools to track changes in memory and thinking, and a home sensor system to help doctors step in earlier.

• Only projects that demonstrate benefits in NHS testing will receive additional funding — an approach UKRI calls “fail-fast”, designed to speed up adoption of effective technologies.

• “Dementia has been neglected for far too long,” Minister of State for Health Karin Smyth said.

• “More people die as a consequence of dementia than any other disease in the United Kingdom, accounting for almost one in eight deaths,” said UKRI Health Mission Challenge Director Andy Hill, adding that over 72,000 people across the UK died from dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease, last year.

($1 = 0.7584 pounds)

(Reporting by Kamal Choudhury in Bengaluru; Editing by Vijay Kishore)

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