Simple eye scan could detect early signs of a rare dementia

A SIMPLE eye test can quickly detect the early signs of a rare type of dementia, a study has found.

The thinning of the outer retina indicates the patient has frontotemporal dementia, an uncommon type of dementia that mainly affects the front and sides of the brain.

It is hard to diagnose because it does not initially cause memory problems and, like other types of dementia, it tends to develop slowly and get gradually worse over several years.

It affects about 16,300 people or two per cent of all dementia cases and signs include personality and behaviour changes and problems with language, mental abilities and memory.

Sufferers may also experience physical problems, such as slow or stiff movements, loss of bladder or bowel control, muscle weakness or difficulty swallowing.

Currently, diagnosis is based on an assessment of symptoms and mental abilities, blood tests to rule out conditions with similar symptoms, brain scans and testing spinal fluid to rule out Alzheimer’s.

Now scientists at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have found eye changes may signal frontotemporal dementia, also known as frontotemporal lobe degeneration – FTD.

The study was published in the publication Neurology. ALMOST a third of the money stolen from a hospice in a summer banking fraud has been recovered.

Highland Hospice, based in Inverness, lost £570,000 from its Bank of Scotland account in July in a fraud targeting various firms that, collectively, netted close to £2.5 million.

Criminals used spoof phone calls claiming to be from the bank used by the