ABSTRACT
The majority of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) cases are idiopathic and difficult to predict during the prodromal phase when symptoms are absent. AD that changes with disease progression independently from non-diseased controls and other neurological diseases, then clinical development programs can begin to determine if therapeutic intervention works at a particular disease time point. A useful comparison with societal awareness of neurological diseases is public interest in some psychological disorders ranging from anxiety to autism. In comparison, social awareness of dementia steadily increased while interest in AD waned, plateaued, and is, hopefully, increasing. Incorporating social media data into medical research would do two things. First, it would help direct research efforts toward areas of great social importance and second, it would give a strong indicator of the public’s perception of the medical research community.
