If you could take a test and find whether or not you or a loved one has Alzheimer's Disease, would you take the test?

Before now, no definitive test was said to be available - short of examining the brain after death.

But technology and research advances have changed this scenario, according to story just published in the Wall Street Journal.

According to the article, the FDA has just approved a test developed by Eli Lilly & Co. that detects the presence of proteins in the brain that are related to Alzheimer's disease.

It's said the tool could enable clinicians to detect Alzheimer's earlier and more accurately in patients at the earliest sign of memory problems. The article also asserts that this knowledge is "a potential boon to treatment and developing drugs against the disease."

The test, naturally, is very expensive, and i have no idea whether or not insurance and/or Medicare will cover it.

So what say you? If you could know, would you want to? Why or why not?

Here's a video that explains a bit more about this new test.

As it explains, the actual test is a PET Scan that you take after receiving an injection of the new drug. Apparently somehow the drug makes the proteins show up during the scan...

Sounds so very futuristic to me.

And I'm still not sure if I would want to know my diagnosis. Guess the concept is that foreknowledge makes it easier to plan.

Or to know that it's time to start praying for a miracle...

I think I would want to know. Maybe. There are drugs now that help slow the progression of the disease if it's diagnosed early enough. And there's the planning part, too.