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Alzheimer’s is a diseases that most people have probably heard about, something that deals with affects a person’s manner of thinking and also the ability to interact socially.

As far as the human body is concerned, the human brain is the focal point where some sort of abnormal material builds up. To date, there is no clear way to determine when Alzheimer’s can possibly creep into anyone though studies are continuing to try and figure out if such is possible.

While there are a lot of researchers and scientists surely on the disease, a small study could be a step towards that direction. The study comes from Washington University in St. Louis which bares that people who have difficulty remembering how to get around new surroundings could be a possible early sign of Alzheimer’s.

The study carried out included 16 people with symptoms of the disease and 13 seemingly normal people with early signs of preclinical Alzheimer's in fluid from around their brain and spinal cord (better known as cerebrospinal fluid). Aside from those two groups, there were also 42 healthy people who took part in the study.

The participants were tested with their ability to navigate though a virtual maze to determine how they can get through it. Two skills were to be assessed, one of which was to determine how well the participant could follow a preset route and the other to see how well they could use a mental map of the maze.

The ones with preclinical Alzheimer’s were able to pass the preset route though they had difficulty dealing with the mental map of the maze. In the end, they were able to overcome the map-learning deficit.

"These findings suggest that navigational tasks designed to assess a [mental] mapping strategy could represent a powerful new tool for detecting the very earliest Alzheimer's disease-related changes in cognition," said study senior author Denise Head, the associate professor of psychological and brain sciences.

Mental mapping is something found to be common in people with early stage Alzheimer’s so it will be interesting how the test would result if normal people would take on the task.

As far as people who have cerebrospinal fluid markers, the report adds that such is not an immediate sign that they would be developing the disease.

"Future research should examine whether cognitive mapping deficits in individuals in preclinical Alzheimer's are associated with an increased risk of developing symptomatic Alzheimer's," said the researchers towards the end of the study.