Neuronuclear Imaging in the Evaluation of Dementia and Mild Decline in Cognition
Section snippets
New Guidelines for AD Diagnosis
Previous guidelines for the detection of AD included meeting the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (Fourth edition) criteria for dementia, which required an episodic memory disorder and impairment in >1 cognitive domain that interfered with daily life activity or social function. Beyond that, a diagnosis of “probable AD” was essentially a diagnosis of exclusion.12, 13 The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (Fifth edition) which is set to be released in May
Conclusions
Structural and functional imaging techniques can be preferentially used at different stages of cognitive decline, geared to the specific biological changes occurring in patients. Levels of specific proteins in CSF, and scans obtained with MRI, SPECT, and PET, serve as biomarkers with varying degrees of utility for predicting subsequent cognitive decline, as discussed in detail earlier. With enhanced education about optimizing the diagnostic workup for those patients presenting with early
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