The Alzheimer ’s Disease Clinical Spectrum

Alzheimer ’s disease (AD) care requires timely diagnosis and multidisciplinary management. Evaluation involves structured patient and caregiver history and symptom-function reviews, examination, and testing (laboratory and neuroimaging) to delineate impairment level, determine the cognitive-behavioral syndr ome, and diagnose cause. Clinical biomarkers are available to aid high confidence in etiologic diagnosis. Management uses psychoeducation, shared goal setting, and patient-caregiver dyad decision making. When combined, pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic therapies mitigate symptoms and reduce clinica l progression and care burden. AD biopathologic processes develop over decades before symptoms manifest; this period is increasingly targeted in research as an opportunity to best delay or prevent AD dementia.
Source: Medical Clinics of North America - Category: Primary Care Authors: Source Type: research