Dementia test

Both our internal information people and the local press are
getting very excited because some Karolinska people have made some
pretty good progress towards developing a test that will predict
dementia 20 years ahead. [Press
release, with links to the original article] It’s cool science, no
doubt about it, but I can’t help wondering, would you want to
take a test at the age of 50 that might predict that you had a high
chance of being senile by the time you were 70? I guess it’s the same
problem as with any predictive medical testing: in the absence of a
cure or even sensible prevention, what’s the point of knowing?

I think it’s the timescale that bothers me, in part; I don’t have the
same objection to, say, cervical smears which tell me whether I might
be at risk for cancer in the coming few years. That allows me to do
something about it in terms of possibly readjusting my life plans. But
I can’t plan on the basis of some terrible thing that might happen in
20 years’ time; I’d just have to live with the knowledge that this was
likely to happen to me, which I don’t think would be good
psychologically.

It’s true that almost everybody expects to be mortal (the exceptions
are a few religious people and a few quasi-religious geeks who think
the Singularity is going to cure death). So you always have to run
your life on the basis that you have a few decades at best and
possibly even less. But I’d still rather not know the probable time
and manner of my demise more than a few years in advance, I think.