The story’s headline states: “Virtual reality to help detect early risk of Alzheimer’s.” That is misleading. The researchers haven’t even recruited study participants yet, much less conducted the study or analyzed the results.
This leaves both investors and lay audiences without enough information to evaluate how useful the new product will be, should it pass muster with the FDA.
Breakthrough? Based on the story of one patient? We’re told the procedure hasn’t been done often. But how often, and what happened to the other women?
The story mostly just rehashes a drug company news release.
Did the study findings really earn a label of “game-changing?”
This story could have provided a bit more on costs, alternatives, and how this study was performed.
It’s too bad those comments don’t appear until the end.
This story relies on a news release, and it’s full of holes. Cost, harms, evidence, who might benefit — all go unaddressed.
The story played up wishful conjecture about slashing dementia cases in half.
One girl’s story illustrates harms as well as benefits.
Systematic, Criteria-Driven
@HealthNewsRevu "There’s no harm in trying to make a buck, per se. But there is harm in promoting things that are not backed up by evidence, and in converting normal states of health into sickness" https://t.co/aeUTK4CVAs
Men’s Health Month: "Some of it was thinly-veiled, profit-driven fear-mongering," says @garyschwitzer: https://t.co/MOWdxlenvz
Tips & Resources for Analyzing Health Care Claims
