8.24.2004
MemCheck Pro Alpha - Web Service
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If you are physician, and we know that many of our readers are - clearly it is less than 640,000 but more than fourscore have already expressed interest in getting MemCheck for your practice - you need something more accurate, that's faster, can be used remotely or from home, than the current paper-based tests like the MMSE when someone comes to your office with a memory concern.
One of the things I did awhile ago is the old HP MBWA "management by walking around" and talking to people in scanning centers, not the owners, but the people who greeted you and actually had to do the work. So, we got some feedback and that's what we are putting into the alpha. Sometimes the real intel starts at the loading dock and gets smaller as you get towards the 50th floor.
That's where we come in and if you move quickly you can join our 'alpha' (here's an ad on Yahoo) on the next generation web service for cognitive monitoring which will be called MemCheck Pro. Well, we had a product that we felt made us beholden to the people of Redmond and the (unbeknownst to us) future plans for Windows XP.
Why is all this important, you may ask?
Well, it is very important. Since we know our tests can detect cognitive impairment (Stanford, Scripps, UC-Irvine)and have even shown significant correlation with MRI results, what it means is that we have a chance of catching the early stages of cognitive decline which some researchers have suggested could start as early as 18 and certainly in the 30's. Usually there is no reason to get an MRI as you or I wouldn't even think we had a problem; when in fact it exists but is beneath the threshold of sensitivity. What our software does then, and puts in your hands, is added granularity so that those early onsets might be detected. If so, drugs like Aricept show a much better result and can slow down Alzheimer's. Also, exercise and mental stimulation (e.g. Alz.org's train your brain campaign) can reduce memory loss, particularly when combined with aerobic exercise. Rather than a triangulated approach to detect memory loss, we enable a triangulated campaign to prevent and rollback memory loss like a heatshield on a descending spacecraft.
