Current and Developing Methods for Diagnosing Alzheimer's Disease

Abstract

Although Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia in the elderly, a definite diagnosis of AD normally requires post‐mortem examination. Without specialised brain scans and other tests that are currently only used for clinical research purposes, the many diagnostic tests that are presently available only result in a diagnosis of ‘probable’ AD. These diagnostic tests are also very time‐consuming. This chapter briefly describes the classical post‐mortem findings in an AD brain, then discusses the wide variety of current neuropsychological tests, followed by current and developing imaging and biomarker‐based clinical diagnostic methods.