Alzheimer Clinical

Question 1

Characteristics of AD

Answer 1

long preclinical period
mild symptoms (~3 years)
Frankly demented (~5 years)

Early stages: hasn’t yet affected the primary cortexes and sensories
Later stages: started to affect the primary cortexes and sensories (leads to physical decline and frailty)
Terminal stages: Patient bedridden, risk
of respiratory syndromes

Question 2

Diagnostic Criteria and cognitive changes of AD

Answer 2

demented
insidious development of symptoms
deficits in amnestic and non-amnestic functions
(memories + language/visuospatial abilities/motor functions)
no other plausible explanations

memory
difficulties in navigation
language issue (anomia, circumlocution) (lost of words/can’t find the right word to describe)

Question 3

Steps to diagnose AD

Answer 3

Understand the base of the patient
Do tasks and tests to understand where the patient is at in terms of cognitive and memory performance
compare performance whether normal or AD

If not demented but cognitively worsened (mild cognitive impairment/prodromal AD)

Question 4

Treatments to AD

Answer 4

symptomatic relief
anti-amyloid
anti-tau
downstream