Search

Skip to main content Accessibility help

Only show content I have access to (0)

Chapters (1)

Over 3 years (1)

From year:

To year:

Apply

Medicine (1)

Cambridge University Press (1)

1 results

12 - Alzheimer's disease
from Part II - Neurological diseases
- By Ingmar Skoog, Kaj Blennow
Albert Hofman, Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, Richard Mayeux, Columbia University, New York
Book:

Investigating Neurological Disease

Published online:

29 September 2009

Print publication:

30 August 2001, pp 154-173
- Chapter
- - Get access
    
    Check if you have access via personal or institutional login
    
    Log in Register
- Export citation
Summary

Alzheimer's disease (AD), alone or in combination with other disorders, is probably the most common form of dementia. The prevalence of AD is higher in men than in women among younger old people and higher among women than among men in the very old. The β-amyloid protein is one of the characteristic components of the extracellular senile plaques (SP) and is deposited in the brain of AD patients. Most investigators consider amyloid deposition to be a "central event" in the pathogenesis of AD, starting a cascade which results in neuronal destruction. Histopathology is often stated to be the "golden standard" for a diagnosis of AD. Survival is reduced in AD, and it is considered to be the fourth or fifth most common cause of death in Western society. A recent clinical trial suggested that treatment with antioxidants slows the progression of AD.