Part of a new movement to diagnose and, eventually, treat Alzheimer's disease earlier, change regarding the criteria for the disease is being proposed by medical experts.

If these guidelines come into being then it would mean that using brain scans the disease would be detected much before memory is seen to be affected or alike symptoms show up.

Experts expect a two to three times increase in the number of people who would be informed that they are going towards getting the disease. About 5.3 million Americans are suffering from the disease presently, the Alzheimer's Association has reported.

These changes if take place will also prove useful to companies that make drugs to treat the disease as they would target to make drugs to weed out the disease even before it is present. As of now there are no such drugs.

Researchers have stated that Alzheimer's is present about 10 years before dementia.

Dr. Paul Aisen, an Alzheimer's researcher at the University of California, San Diego, and a member of one of the groups formulating the new guidelines, said, "Our thinking has changed dramatically. We now view dementia as a late stage in the process."