Abstract
Background: Hope for future treatments to prevent or slow down dementia motivates researchers to strive for ever-earlier diagnoses of Alzheimer's disease (AD) based on biomarkers, even before symptoms occur. But is a biomarker-based early diagnosis desirable in clinical practice? Objective: This study explores the ethical considerations that shape current clinical practice regarding early AD diagnostics and the use of biomarkers. Methods: In this qualitative study, Dutch physicians were interviewed. Topics included physicians' views concerning early AD diagnosis in persons with no or mild cognitive impairment, physicians' considerations regarding current and expected future practices of early AD diagnosis, the use of biomarkers, and the use of the concepts preclinical and prodromal AD. We analyzed the transcripts using directed content analysis. Results: 15 general practitioners, neurologists, and geriatricians in the Netherlands were interviewed. Most of them interpreted an early AD diagnosis with an early diagnosis of dementia. We identified six clusters of considerations sometimes in favor but most often against pursuing an early AD diagnosis in people with no or mild cognitive impairment that influence physicians' diagnostic decision-making: preferences and characteristics of persons, test characteristics, impact on care, type of setting, disease concepts, and issues on a societal level. Conclusion: The discussion concerning an early AD diagnosis based on biomarkers which is widely held in the scientific field, has not entered clinical practice structurally. A biomarker-based early diagnosis does not fit within Dutch physicians' views on what good care for people with no, subjective, or mild cognitive impairment should entail.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 917-927 |
| Number of pages | 11 |
| Journal | Journal of Alzheimer's Disease |
| Volume | 79 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 19 Jan 2021 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The possibility to diagnose AD in people with subjective or mild cognitive impairment based on biomarker results in clinical practice is increasingly presented as an ideal in scientific literature [20, 24]. This ideal seems not in line with current clinical practice in the Netherlands. More importantly, it does not fit with views of Dutch physicians on what good care for people with no, subjective, or mild cognitive We thank all physicians who were willing to participate in the interview study. This research is supported by a grant from The Netherlands Organization for Health Research and Development (grant number: 731010012).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021-The authors. Published by IOS Press.
