Title: Towards the early diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease: a multicriteria model structured on neuroimaging

Authors: Isabelle Tamanini, Ana Karoline De Castro, Placido Rogerio Pinheiro, Mirian Caliope Dantas Pinheiro

Addresses: Graduate Program in Applied Computer Sciences, University of Fortaleza (UNIFOR), Av. Washington Soares, 1321 – Bl J Sl 30, Fortaleza 60.811-905, Brazil. ' Graduate Program in Applied Computer Sciences, University of Fortaleza (UNIFOR), Av. Washington Soares, 1321 – Bl J Sl 30, Fortaleza 60.811-905, Brazil. ' Graduate Program in Applied Computer Sciences, University of Fortaleza (UNIFOR), Av. Washington Soares, 1321 – Bl J Sl 30, Fortaleza 60.811-905, Brazil. ' Graduate Program in Applied Computer Sciences, University of Fortaleza (UNIFOR), Av. Washington Soares, 1321 – Bl J Sl 30, Fortaleza 60.811-905, Brazil

Abstract: The Alzheimer|s disease has become the most frequent cause of dementia in the last few years. Despite its high incidence, it is proved that the disease has already been present for decades when the diagnosis is made. One of the great challenges nowadays is to identify the disease on its earliest stages, because the earliest the dementia is diagnosed, the greater the chances of delaying its advance. Concerning this fact, our main proposal is the development a multicriteria model for aiding in the decision making on the diagnosis of the Alzheimer|s disease. It will be made by means of the Aranau Tool, a decision support system based on ZAPROS method. The modelling and evaluation processes were conducted with the aid of a medical expert, bibliographic sources and questionnaires, which were based mainly on patients| neuroimaging tests and were tried under various aspects that are relevant to the diagnosis.

Keywords: verbal decision analysis; VDA; Alzheimer|s diagnosis; Alzheimer|s disease; neuroimaging; ZAPROS; early diagnosis; multicriteria modelling; dementia; medical imaging.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSHC.2009.031008

International Journal of Social and Humanistic Computing, 2009 Vol.1 No.2, pp.203 - 217

Published online: 17 Jan 2010 *

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