Alzheimer's is a neurological illness that comes with little or no warning.<br />To help people figure out their own risk of the disease, Korean researchers have used big data to build a program that compares a patient's brain with ones known to be healthy.<br />Cho Sung-min reports. <br />Alzheimer's is the most common cause of dementia in South Korea. <br />It starts to develop when the brain is damaged... which usually occurs through natural aging, head injuries, and genetic reasons.<br />Experts say even an MRI scan doesn't do much to help spot it,... especially if it's just starting to develop.<br /><br />To prevent Alzheimer's from advancing too much before it's found and treated,... local researchers have developed a program that can calculate your risk of getting it.<br />The program scans an image of your brain and compares it to those of more than ten thousand Alzheimer's-free people who are at least 60 years old.<br /><br />Using an algorithm, the program analyzes the difference between your brain and these healthy brains.<br />The developers say their program's accuracy has been proven through multiple tests.<br /><br /><br />"The program breaks down the images to a scale of less than zero-point-one milimeters,... so it spots everything. It has a successful Alzheimer's prediction rate of more than ninety percent,... and more than sixty percent accuracy in spotting mild cognitive impairment." <br /><br />Currently, it's being used on a trial basis by six university hospitals across the nation, and the team says it's looking at ways to export the product to other countries in Northeast Asia.<br />Cho Sung-min, arirang news. <br />
