That's awesome that medical science is making a big difference for your family member.
I suppose my point on "are we there yet?" is that the benefit of knowing is limited when there aren't any preventative treatments you can take. I can see both sides but I'm not sure I'd want to take such a test.
For me, this one doesn’t seem to have enough accuracy to be worth the trouble.
But a few years of improvements and maybe a blood test like that is what you need to get insurance to cover a baseline neurological evaluation plus re-evaluation every few years to see whether it’s time to start aggressive treatment.
Maybe in another decade aggressive treatment will be available for disease at earlier stages and good enough to prevent progression at all and maintain nearly full quality of life.
This isn’t a game changer right now, but every time something like this makes it through trials it gives me a bit more hope that we will in fact beat this thing. Likely within my lifetime. Maybe even before I succumb to it.
Comments
That's awesome that medical science is making a big difference for your family member.
I suppose my point on "are we there yet?" is that the benefit of knowing is limited when there aren't any preventative treatments you can take. I can see both sides but I'm not sure I'd want to take such a test.
And no one will force you to.
For me, this one doesn’t seem to have enough accuracy to be worth the trouble.
But a few years of improvements and maybe a blood test like that is what you need to get insurance to cover a baseline neurological evaluation plus re-evaluation every few years to see whether it’s time to start aggressive treatment.
Maybe in another decade aggressive treatment will be available for disease at earlier stages and good enough to prevent progression at all and maintain nearly full quality of life.
This isn’t a game changer right now, but every time something like this makes it through trials it gives me a bit more hope that we will in fact beat this thing. Likely within my lifetime. Maybe even before I succumb to it.