Managing Alzheimer's disease

Abstract

These are exciting times for research into Alzheimer's disease (AD). Significant investments in research, coupled with an infrastructure of AD research centers, have led to unprecedented advances in our understanding of the disease. From advances in pathobiological understanding, pharmacologic treatments have emerged that involve two major strategies: relieving the symptoms of AD, using cholinergic system enhancers or metabolic enhancers, and slowing the progression of AD with medications directed at retarding or halting the neurodegenerative sequence. The development of strategies to identify presymptomatic AD, and the associated use of medications that slow the progression of disease, would prevent the emergence of many cases of symptomatic AD. Given the advanced age of the population most susceptible to AD, delayed emergence coupled with slowed progression of symptoms would diminish the burden of AD and potentially eliminate it. The topics for this Neurology supplement on AD …