Proposed Update in Guidelines for Alzheimer's Criteria

Approximately 5.3 million Americans suffer from Alzheimer’s disease. In 1984, guidelines were set to determine if an individual fit the criteria for Alzheimer’s disease. Due to advancements in pathology and progression of the disorder, medical experts are proposing to update the diagnostic guidelines for the first time in over 25 years. According to amednews, “These changes are designed to help physicians better diagnose patients with cognitive impairment who might have gone untreated because their symptoms did not fit existing disease criteria.”

The Alzheimer’s Association and National Institute on Aging released their recommendations of revision on July 13. The proposed guidelines:

• Call for removing age restrictions for the onset of the disease.
• Include updated criteria to distinguish Alzheimer’s dementia from other forms of cognitive impairment.
• Expand symptoms beyond memory impairment to difficulty expressing one’s self with words, spatial cognition problems, and impaired reasoning or judgement.

These revisions encourage physicians to look for earlier signs of the disease before patients develop dementia. Researchers have learned that the disease process can start more than 10 years before symptoms appear and that dementia can be caused by other conditions such as cerebrovascular disease and Lewy body disease.

The use of neuroimaging and other biomarkers for predicting an individuals risk of developing Alzheimer’s has been questioned.  However, they are not yet recommended for early detection because the technology has not been validated for such use.

Health professionals are encouraged to offer feedback on the proposal through August as comments will be considered to amend the criteria before publishing the revisions.

For more information on the proposal and the disease, visit amednews.