Qatar Professor Pioneers AI Eye Scan Detecting Dementia and Parkinson’s Early

Al Jazeera says a Qatar-based professor has pioneered a non-invasive eye scan that uses AI to analyse the eye and can identify early signs of dementia, Parkinson’s disease, and other diseases within minutes.

The same Al Jazeera report frames the scan as detecting neurodegenerative diseases years before symptoms appear, positioning the eye as a diagnostic entry point rather than a symptom-only indicator.

Al Jazeera

Modern Ghana’s version of the story similarly describes the technology as non-invasive and AI-driven, emphasizing that it can detect diseases years before symptoms appear.

Al Jazeera also specifies that the scan is designed to find early signs of dementia and Parkinson’s disease, linking the method to neurodegenerative conditions rather than general screening alone.

Sudan Independent describes the retina as “the only part of the brain that can be viewed noninvasively,” and says that minute changes in blood vessels inside the eye may reflect deeper disorders in the brain, the heart, or metabolism.

The same Sudan Independent piece says that a 2026 study published in Nature Medicine, led by Joseph Ledsam from Deep Health – London, developed an intelligent model to analyze retinal images to predict cardiovascular risks.

Futura

It adds that the results included the system’s ability to estimate biological age, blood pressure levels, and even the risk of stroke based on details in the pattern of blood vessels.

Sudan Independent also warns that artificial intelligence “does not view humans as integrated beings, but as data,” and notes that such data can be incomplete, biased, or not representative of all groups.

Al Arabiya Net says a Saudi physician, Dr. Salwa Al-Hazzaa, developed the SAARIA invention, a medical system that uses artificial intelligence algorithms to analyze fundus images in seconds and diagnose retinal diseases.

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Modern Ghana

The Al Arabiya Net report says SAARIA is used for early detection of retinal diseases such as diabetic retinopathy and also enables prediction of chronic diseases linked to vision loss, including heart disease, hypertension, and neurological disorders such as dementia.

It further states that SAARIA helps expand access to healthcare by screening in primary care centers or even in remote areas without the immediate need for an ophthalmologist.

Al Arabiya Net also says the system is designed for high-density environments such as Hajj, where it can perform rapid fundus screening in seconds to support medical teams during a high-pressure work environment.