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A Fractional Improvement?

Arch Neurol. 2003;60:1195-1196.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

THE CLINICAL EVALUATION used to diagnose Alzheimer disease (AD) and other forms of dementia is often perceived as cumbersome because it places high demands on expertise and time. This perception has spurred research into biomarkers for AD, with 2 main areas of focus: (1) imaging of brain structure, metabolism, and activation and (2) measurement of proteins in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). In many studies, these techniques have attained high sensitivity to distinguish patients with AD from controls. However, the clinical diagnosis of dementia, made by a physician armed with little more than a pencil and paper, remains the gold standard. Dementia specialists can diagnose AD with great accuracy, predicting AD lesions at autopsy in about 90% of cases.¹ Nonspecialist physicians are often cited as having lower diagnostic accuracy for AD, but this includes failure to screen for dementia or to carry out a systematic clinical evaluation because of factors such . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Douglas Galasko, MD
Department of Neurosciences
University of California, San Diego, and VA Medical Center
Neurology Service, VAMC127
3350 La Jolla Village Dr
San Diego, CA 92161
(e-mail: dgalasko@ucsd.edu)

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