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You can call any of these for free. You do not need a diagnosis, an appointment, or a crisis to call — questions and plain exhaustion are reasons enough.

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  • Alzheimer's Foundation of America (AFA) Helpline 866-232-8484 9:00 am - 9:00 pm ET, seven days a week Licensed social workers providing support, info and referrals. Also text message and web chat. Text: 646-586-5283

In a medical emergency, call 911. More numbers, and what each line does, on the help page.

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Free to read, “May need a subscription” and “Archived copy”: what they mean

Whether an article is free to read is a guess, not a test of your access. Each item is one of three:

  • No label: free to read (311 of 358). The publisher’s page marks it free, or the outlet publishes free to read: Medical Xpress, ScienceDaily, NIH (incl. NIA and PMC), Alzheimer's Association, Alzheimer's News Today, NPR, Alzheimer's Disease International, or a .gov site.
  • May need a subscription (12 of 358). The publisher’s own page marks the article as not free to read, or — when the page says nothing — the outlet sells subscriptions: The New York Times, STAT, Scientific American, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, The Economist, Bloomberg, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Wired, Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, The Times, The Telegraph, New Scientist, Endpoints News, Science. Each badge says which.
  • “Free to read? Not known” (35 of 358). The outlet is on neither list and its page said nothing. We do not call these paywalled.

Archived copy links go to a copy the Internet Archive (web.archive.org) saved, dated the day it was saved. We show one only where the Internet Archive reported a working saved copy when we checked; an archived copy of a subscription article sometimes shows only its opening. 266 of 358 items have one.

Nearly 75% of former NFL players who died between 2008 and 2023 had CTE, analysis estimates

Medical Xpress Research

A new study led by Boston University researchers estimates that nearly 75% of all NFL players who died between 2008 and 2023 had chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) neuropathology. …

Read at Medical Xpress →

Added antibody step improves the reliability of Alzheimer's blood tests

Medical Xpress Diagnosis

Researchers at University Medicine Halle have developed a new method that could improve the reliability of blood tests for Alzheimer's disease. Current commercial tests often rely on the protein biomarker p-tau217, whose levels can rise in the early stages of the disease. …

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Two-step blood-test approach helps clarify uncertain brain amyloid status

Medical Xpress Diagnosis

Blood-based biomarkers (BBMs) are blood tests that can detect Alzheimer's disease (AD) brain changes earlier, more cheaply and more easily than traditional methods such as Aβ-PET scans, which are expensive and have limited accessibility. …

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Search for Alzheimer's drug unexpectedly finds possible biomarker

Medical Xpress Diagnosis

Researchers developed a drug for Alzheimer's disease and then discovered that the molecule already exists in human blood and is found at lower levels in cognitively impaired people. Now the authors are exploring the peptide as a biomarker as well as a treatment.

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Alzheimer's blood biomarker tracks brain amyloid similarly across racial groups, study finds

Medical Xpress Diagnosis

A large global study provides new evidence supporting the use of blood biomarkers in an Alzheimer's clinical trial to screen for elevated brain amyloid levels among potential participants who are cognitively unimpaired. …

Read at Medical Xpress → Archived copy (13 Oct 2026), Internet Archive

Routine blood test may suggest future dementia risk

Medical Xpress Policy

A common blood test already carried out during routine health checks may contain clues about a person's long-term risk of dementia, according to research being presented at the ECNP Congress in Munich and published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.

Read at Medical Xpress → Archived copy (12 Oct 2026), Internet Archive

Dietary patterns linked to favorable blood biomarkers relevant to aging

Medical Xpress Research

Researchers have long known that diet plays an important role in health later in life, but the biological mechanisms underlying these associations are not yet fully understood. …

Read at Medical Xpress → Archived copy (29 Sep 2026), Internet Archive

Researchers explore new diagnostic tools, genetic roots for early-onset dementia

Medical Xpress Diagnosis

Researchers at the new Center for Brain Health at UT Health San Antonio are studying midlife testing for early-onset dementia with blood-based biomarkers to see if they can detect disease activity up to 20 years before symptoms appear.

Why it matters: Midlife blood-based biomarker testing is being studied to see if it can detect early-onset dementia activity up to 20 years before symptoms appear.

Read at Medical Xpress → Archived copy (27 Jan 2026), Internet Archive

A simple blood test could change how Alzheimer's is diagnosed

Medical Xpress Diagnosis

A blood test, combined with an ultrathin material derived from graphite, could significantly advance efforts to detect Alzheimer's disease at its very earliest stage, even before symptoms appear.

Why it matters: Combining a blood test with an ultrathin graphite-derived material could advance efforts to detect Alzheimer's disease before symptoms appear.

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Plasma p-tau217 can reliably detect preclinical Alzheimer disease

Medical Xpress Diagnosis

Plasma phosphorylated tau 217 (p-tau217) can reliably detect Alzheimer disease (AD) pathology in the preclinical stage, according to a meta-analysis published online Dec. 1 in JAMA Neurology.

Why it matters: Plasma phosphorylated tau 217 can reliably detect Alzheimer disease pathology in the preclinical stage, according to a meta-analysis.

Read at Medical Xpress → Archived copy (24 Jul 2026), Internet Archive

Simple blood test may someday allow for diagnosis of LATE dementia during life

Medical Xpress Research

Jijing Wang, Ph.D., and Hyun-Sik Yang, MD, of the Department of Neurology at Mass General Brigham, are the lead and senior authors of a paper published in Molecular Neurodegeneration titled "Plasma TDP-43 is a potential biomarker for advanced limbic-predominant…

Why it matters: A simple blood test measuring plasma TDP-43 may someday enable doctors to diagnose advanced LATE dementia during a patient's life.

Read at Medical Xpress → Archived copy (21 Nov 2025), Internet Archive