A Note on Changing Approach to Diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease

This short review summarises the conclusions of two different series of studies set out to revise the 1984 National Institute of Neurological and Communicative Disorders and Stroke – Alzheimer’s disease and Related Disorders Association (NINCDS-ADRDA) criteria for the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The role of AD-pathology (AD-P), the characteristics of AD clinical expression, and the importance of positivity of biomarkers are concisely surveyed, and the diverging position of different research groups in reference to predementia AD are outlined. The importance of other factors such as age, inflammatory changes, and vascular pathology, which can variably interact with the main feature of AD, is signalled and some clinical questions are raised.