ABSTRACT
As people liver longer, the risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease (AD) increases dramatically. In fact, the incidence appears to double every five years after age 60 years, suggesting that if people lived long enough, they would all develop the disease by a certain age. Although AD is the most common cause of late-life dementia, other causes, particularly vascular disease, do contribute to the occurrence of dementia. In fact, the burden of such vascular decline appears to contribute to a greater portion of dementia cases in the upper age groups. Whether it is pure AD, pure vascular dementia, or something along the continuum, these cases of dementia progress with time. The underlying lesions reach a threshold such that they lead to cognitive decline that interferes with daily life. With Alzheimer’s dementia, this slow insidious decline represents an accumulation of pathological features and declining neurotransmitter functions that begin well before the clinician can confirm a clinical diagnosis in practice.
