ABSTRACT
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common dementia, accounting for the majority of cases in the elderly. Differentiation of other dementias from AD is important in order to implement an appropriate treatment plan, including providing prognostic information and counselling to patients and their families. As in AD, diagnosing non-Alzheimer’s dementia relies on the consideration of demographics, risk factors, the clinical course, examination features (neuropsychological and neurological) and laboratory findings. The severity of
symptoms on presentation might influence the accuracy of diagnosis. Complicating the differential diagnosis of dementia is the fact that neurodegenerative and other age-related disorders (such as ischaemic disease) can be overlapping. In an important minority of cases an accurate diagnosis cannot be made in living patients, highlighting the importance of continued efforts to obtain autopsies in people dying with dementia.
