TOKYO (Kyodo) -- A method developed by a Japanese team using three questions allows easy screening of Alzheimer's disease and mild cognitive impairment, it said Thursday, with a rising number of patients calling for early diagnosis and treatment.

The Keio University and Saiseikai Yokohamashi Tobu Hospital researchers asked three questions: "Do you feel that you have more difficulties in your daily life than you used to?"; "Could you tell me about your daily pleasures or pastimes?"; and "What are the most notable current/recent news/topics?"

The method "can be used at nursing care facilities and would contribute to early discovery" of patients with the disease, said team member Daisuke Ito, a project professor at Keio University specializing in neurology.

In the study, the questions were posed to 108 dementia patients, including those with Alzheimer's disease, and 47 people with no cognitive issues. The questioners also checked whether the respondents refrained from answering the questions directly or turned their heads toward an accompanying person, such as a family member, for help.

Brain scans showed people had a higher risk of developing Alzheimer's when they answered the first question negatively or said something like, "I may have become forgetful but that is because of age and I have no trouble," gave a concrete answer to the second question, and cited news that is over three months old or did not provide a concrete answer for the third question, the team said.

Among the respondents, amyloid beta proteins, seen to cause Alzheimer's when accumulated, were also around three times higher on average, it said.

The study also showed that subjects who turned to their companions for help had a higher risk of Alzheimer's, regardless of their responses to the three questions, with their amount of accumulated amyloid beta proteins around 2.8 times higher on average, the team said.

The study was published Thursday in the scientific journal Alzheimer's Research & Therapy.

Alzheimer's is the most prevalent form of dementia. One study projects that 4.71 million elderly people in Japan will be affected by dementia by 2025 and 6.45 million by 2060, representing approximately one in six individuals aged 65 and above.

Several Alzheimer's drugs such as lecanemab and donanemab-azbt have become available in Japan, which work by removing accumulated amyloid beta proteins in the brain to slow the progress of the debilitating disease.

The drugs are offered to patients with early symptomatic Alzheimer's disease. But there have been cases where patients have missed out on the medications as they waited for a diagnosis, which requires multiple advanced examinations.