Current guidelines for dementia screening: shortcomings and recommended changes

Abstract

Summary The availability of various guidelines regarding the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) leaves most primary care providers with the task of having to decide which guidelines to follow. This review will help them navigate these different guidelines and understand how they differ from previous guidelines. Challenges related to the use of these guidelines are discussed, including biomarker testing, the lack of recognition in the community of what constitutes memory impairment and how to best screen for it, and recommendations for easy and early detection and diagnosis in the clinical settings are made. Adoption of biomarkers in clinical practice will give primary care providers the means to establish with certainty the underlying pathology responsible for the observed clinical symptoms and increase their ability to establish the presence of AD pathology before symptoms occur and, therefore, potentially help prevent or slow down the progression to AD.