What is the at-home SAGE test for Alzheimer's prevention?

The at-home SAGE Test is a way to check your brain function and cognitive abilities from the comfort of home. Neurologist Richard Isaacson, MD, explains how the test works, what it tests for, how long it takes, and what to do with the results.

Transcript

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Early detection and early intervention is the way that we can beat Alzheimer's disease and other dementias. [MUSIC PLAYING]

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The at-home SAGE test, or otherwise known as the Self-Assessment Gerocognitive Exam test, is an at-home way to basically check your brain function

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from the comfort of your own home. It's simple. You can do drawing. You can name animals. You can do a variety of different cognitive tasks

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that basically evaluate how different parts of your brain are working-- the front part of your brain, the side part of your brain. And over here, this part of the brain

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is the temporal lobe or, really, where the memories are processed. And the SAGE test is really helpful because it can help spot a problem with the brain way

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before someone even may realize that something was going on. And if we can intervene early, early detection

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and early intervention is the way that we can beat Alzheimer's disease and other dementias. The SAGE test or the Self-Assessment Gerocognitive

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Exam actually is about a 10- to 15-minute test. It's not that long. It's pretty easy. It's several pages that you can download and print at home.

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You then take the test and you bring the test to your primary care physician or other health care provider so that they can interpret it and score it.

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Once they look at this, they can then make an assessment on what types of things need to be done. So for example, if there's a problem on the SAGE test

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and someone is having trouble with memory or other cognitive abilities, then that person can actually possibly get

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an X-ray of the brain, get some blood tests to try to figure out, what is the cause of these problems? The SAGE test should probably be taken every 6 months, every 12

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months. And the way that I view it is kind of like a brain or cognitive vital sign. Just like someone takes their blood pressure at home

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or takes their blood sugar at home, taking this self-assessment test is a way to see how the brain is functioning over time.